Sound, Music & MIDI Collection 2

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Text File | 1995-05-13 | 16.4 KB | 355 lines

█▓▒░ ▓░███ █████████▀▀▀▀▀ █ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ █████ ▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▒▓█ █▒░ ▓▒░▒ █▓▒░ ░▒▓██▓▓█ ██ ██ ███ ███ ░▒█ █░ █▓▓▒▒ █▒▒█ ▒▒▓ ██ ███ ███ ░█ █ ▓███████████ ░░▒▒░░ ░▒█ ██▓█ ▓████▓ P L A Y E R █ █ ████ █░░▒▒ ░███▀▀▀ ▓███ ▓▓██ █▓▓ █ █ ░░▒▒▓▓██░░▒▒▓█████ ██▓▓░▒ ▒▓██ ░▒▓█ ▓▓██ ▒▒█ █ █ ░▒▓████░░▒▒▒▒▓▓██ ██▓▓▒▒░░ ▒▓██ ░▒▓█ ▒▒▓▓█ ▒░█░█ █ █ ░ ░▒▓███ ░▒▒▓▓█ ░█░░▒▒▓ █▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▒░▓█▓█▓▒▒░ ▄█ ▄ ▄▄█ version 2.20 released 13th may 1995 1oo% assembly coding by jedi / oxygen ------------------------------- -------- ----- - - welcome to the new look starplayer - - ----- ------- ---------------------------------- welcome to version 2.20 of starplayer. for those who dont know, starplayer is a s3m/mod/mtm module player for the PC which supports the Gravis Ultrasound and SoundBlaster series of sound cards. unlike most other players, starplayer is a 32-bit protected mode multi-module player. this means it uses your 386 or higher processor to load many modules into extended memory and then play any of these while taking only minimal conventional ram. this version represents a significant change in the design and implemention of starplayer. in response to the requests of many users, starplayer now has the ability to load up to 64 modules at once and features an enhanced popup menu-based interface. from this menu and submenus, it is possible to tag and load multiple modules from any directory and play any of the loaded modules in an instant. this menu can be activated at any time, making it possible to load modules from within dos and even other applications! ------------------------------ -------- ----- - - instructions - - ----- ------- ---------------------------------- starplayer should be loaded from dos. the command line format is: starplay [-?] [-options] [filespec] soundcard type, address, irq and dma settings are determined from either the ULTRASND= or BLASTER= environment variables. starplayer will first check for the presence of a gus and then, failing that, a soundblaster. NOTE: starplayer does not detect soundcards via hardware, so ensure that these settings are present and correct! the option -d disables DMA sample dumping which may be necessary with certain memory managers. if noise is heard while playing, use this option or try removing the offending memory manager. (eg EMM386, QEMM, etc) other options can be listed by using the -? or -h parameters. ------------------------------- -------- ----- - - main screen: when you enter the module player you will be presented with a status bar at the top of the screen and a list of options at the bottom. the player version number, and active device statistics are listed at the bottom. if a filespec is presented on the command line, the player will attempt to load these modules (wildcard filespecs are permitted) and play the first loaded module. when playing, channel vu bars, sample, note, volume, panning and effect statistics are also displayed. most of the functuality of starplayer has been taken from this screen and placed in the f10 popup menu. these commands are still available at this screen however to maintain a level of similarity to previous versions of starplayer which used a command line interface: l <filespec> - load module(s) "filespec" into memory the palette is faded while loading. starplayer will attempt to load all modiles matching the filespec into free slots. if no extension is given starplayer will also search for '.s3m' and '.mod' files which match the given filespec. s - stop module. (or F9 with scroll-lock) this will stop playing the current module. d - shell to dos (use EXIT to return) one of the most powerful features of starplayer is the ability to shell to dos with 8 modules loaded into extended ram and switch between them using hotkeys with only minimal conventional ram overhead. the hotkeys are only active when the scroll-lock key is on. this enables the f-keys to still be used normally when scroll-lock is off. the keys are listed below. z - toggle video mode. this switches the screen between 80*25 and 80*50. this may be necessary to view all the channel vu bars on large modules. q / esc - quit starplayer. in addition to these, the following keys are active in the player, and during a dos shell, when the scroll lock key is activated. f1-f8 - start playing song 1-8 continuously palette is faded while loading samples onto device ram. shift-f? - play song 1-8 only (looped) f9 - stop playing f10 - activate popup menu f11 - decrease pattern f12 - increase pattern alt-f11 - dec. volume alt-f12 - inc. volume ctrl-f11 - previous song ctrl-f12 - next song ------------------------------- -------- ----- - - song selection menu: (f10, with scroll lock active) this popup menu provides the backbone to the new starplayer interface. from here it is possible to select modules to play, view sample lists, load and save modules and release them from device and system ram. in the centre of the menu a list of loaded modules and their size, number of channels, samples, patterns and order length are listed. white module names are modules which are currently loaded into device ram, while grey indicates that when played, samples will have to be dumped to device ram. the red highlight bar indicates the module which is currently being played. the blue highlight bar is used to select modules for various operations. this highlight bar can be moved using the up/down cursor keys, and with the page up, page down, home and end keys. the keys listed at the bottom of the screen provide various functions: space/p/enter - play the highlighted module. enter differs from space and p in that once the module has been started, the popup menu will close. by holding shift while pressing these keys will loop the highlighted module. (ie. disable continuous play). note that the screen will be dimmed while samples are being dumped to device ram. (if required) l - activate the file selection menu. (see below) tab - load modules by specifying a direct path and filespec. this allows the quick loading of multiple files through the use of wildcard characters. s - stop playing current module. (same as f9) v - view sample list of highlighted module. this lists all the samples of the highlighted module, with their titles, sizes and loop positions. up and down arrows can be used to scroll this list. f - free samples from device ram. this removes the samples of the last loaded module from device ram. use this if output on a gus becomes corrupt. r - release the last loaded module from ram. this removes the last loaded module from both system and device ram and frees up the last slot for other modules. w - write highlighted module to disk. this function prompts for a filename and will save the highlighted module as a s3m file, which is a much more efficient file format than mod or mtm. thus, starplayer can function also as a mod->s3m and a mtm->s3m convertor. esc - quits the popup menu, returning control to the foreground program. ------------------------------- -------- ----- - - file selection menu: ('l' from within the popup song selection menu) this menu provides a convenient means of locating and loading modules which may be in any path or drive on your system. the current path is indicated at the top of the screen, and available directories and drives are listed in white. all the files in the directory are searched to identify possible modules. those found are listed, along with their type (S3M, MOD or MTM), title and size in bytes. the arrow, page up/down, home and end keys can be used to move the blue selection bar. pressing space will tag the highlighted module to be loaded, while * will tag all the modules found in the current path. pressing enter on a module will load that module, plus any others which are tagged within that directory, and return to the song selection menu. pressing enter on a directory or drive will load any tagged modules and change the current path. pressing esc will quit the menu without loading any tagged modules. ------------------------------- -------- ----- - - tips from the author: starplayer uses a few tricks and techniques which both dos and Tran's pmode were not really designed to do. although pmode was designed to support calls from protected mode to real mode, it was never intended to fully support a dos shell. similarly, dos was never designed to be re-entrant or to have time critical routines interrupted for long periods of time. therefore it is recommended that for safe operation, the popup menu only be used when the disk is not being accessed. it is definately recommended that modules are not loaded when the disk is being accessed by a foreground program. if, for some reason, starplayer only partially freezes and the keyboard routine is still responsive, pressing control-alt-delete will attempt to close starplayer and return to dos without causing a system reset. this is most useful if the system freezes while dumping samples to device ram. note that when in a DOS shell, all extended memory remains allocated and is hence unavailable for other programs. also to prevent a system crash do not attempt to load multiple copies of starplayer or load any other protected mode program whilst starplayer is in memory.... ------------------------------- -------- ----- - - disclaimer - - ----- ------- ---------------------------------- this program and associated files are freeware. as such, no money may be charged for it, nor may it be distributed in a commercial venture. there is no warranty or claim of fitness or reliability. the programs are distributed AS IS, and as such neither the authors, those who have associations with the demo group known as "oxygen", nor any data retrieval network or system from which this was collected shall be held liable for any loss of data, down time, loss of revenue or profit or any other direct or indirect damage or claims caused by this program. this program is written entirely in pmode assembler without a debugger so don't blame us for whatever happens! we know of quite a few bugs which can make your computer lock up, reset, fall back to dos, or play modules incorrectly. if you find any specific bugs, PLEASE TAKE YOUR TIME TO NOTIFY THE AUTHOR! bugs cannot be eradicated if we dont know about them! in plain english, if it crashes your system, or causes you physical, psychological or emotional torment, or causes your cat to go off its food, tough! :-) ------------------------------ -------- ----- - - oxygen's members - - ----- ------- ---------------------------------- handle main tasks machine ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- jedi coder,musician 486dx4100 vlb, 8mb ram, 1mb GUS, SB 1.5 kitsune musician,graphician a500, 1mb ram, wb2 statix coder,miscellaneous 386dx40, 4mb ram, 1mb GUS, SB 2.2 mantissa coder 486dx266 pci, 16mb ram, 1mb GUS jase musician 486dx33, 8mb ram, 1mb GUS, tb multisnd ------------------------------ -------- ----- - - major releases - - ----- ------- ---------------------------------- dos (electronic programmers tar): product talent description -------------------------------------------------------------------------> cyanide.zip kt/jd/stx/xc Cyanide Demo for the PC - won the 1994 C-Party cyndptch.zip stx Cyanide Patch for Lame Sound Cards (SB et al) starp100.zip jd/stx Starplayer - Best S3M player for the GUS yet. startro.zip jd/kt/stx BBS Loader for Star BBS tedium.zip jd/kt/stx An intro about its title - tedium. starp200.zip jd Starplayer - MOD file support, 100% click free starp201.zip jd Starplayer - DMA to dump samples, pan bug fix starp202.zip jd Starplayer - quick version 2.01 crash bug fix! starp203.zip jd Starplayer - continuous play feature plus more starp210.zip jd Starplayer - new soundblaster support! starp211.zip jd Starplayer - improved soundblaster mixing starp212.zip jd Starplayer - MTM support and VU-bars starp220.zip jd Starplayer - 64 modules, load from shell, menus! other interesting releases: product talent description -------------------------------------------------------------------------> r-delivr.zip jd Deliverance. 2nd Placed Rookie Entry in Music Contest ][. My Child jd Module part of 'expOZe', australian music disk. After Sunset jase Module part of 'expOZe', australian music disk. ** kitsune also releases lots of music, way too many to list here. ------------------------------ -------- ----- - - distro/support bbs - - ----- ------- ---------------------------------- australia -------------------------------------------------------------------------- oxygen whq oxygen.it.com.au whq statix support only. mindflux +61-2-416-2513 ehq force format trilogy nswhq, reality whq, heretics sozhq, dissonance distro.. usa -------------------------------------------------------------------------- oxygen ftp ftp://peace.wit.com/kosmic/oxygen/ official ftp site. realm of insanity +1-2o3-568-15o2 nushq god speed relic, iridium, dark us, klf, union member, nation member.. borderline reality +1-414-656-o2o5 usdist berky bc/itc/gcn/grind/rgs nets, tons of affils. canada -------------------------------------------------------------------------- beats per minute +1-418-660-8137 terminator-x/populus purple, force ten, defiance -------------------------------------------------------------------------- speak to statix if you'd like to join in. ------------------------------ -------- ----- - - how to speak to oxygen - - ----- ------- ---------------------------------- the latest oxygen info can be found on the internet like thus: finger info@oxygen.it.com.au please note that this machine isn't the fastest nor the most reliable machine on the internet... the oxygen web page which can be found at: http://peace.wit.com/~kosmic/oxygen/ and the official oxygen ftp site is: ftp://peace.wit.com/kosmic/oxygen/ you can mail all our members directly at these addresses: jedi jedi@tartarus.uwa.edu.au statix kimba@it.com.au mantissa sjm@it.com.au kitsune kitsune@tartarus.uwa.edu.au jase jlchong@tartarus.uwa.edu.au or collectively at oxygen@oxygen.it.com.au sometimes if you are lucky you might find one of us in IRC channels #coders or #trax, or on Perthnet... if you have a pen, you can stick your ideas on a page destined for jedi/oxygen statix/oxygen scott mcnab kim davies 5 honeydew close 19 kincraig way maida vale wa 6057 duncraig wa 6023 australia australia send your postcards, cash, cheques, gold bars, diamonds, family heirlooms etc to these addresses :) see you in the next oxygen release! ---------------------------------------------------------- -------- ----- - - o x y g e n - - ----- ------- -----------------------------------------------------------