Sound Sensations!

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SOUND OFF! Version 2.0 Command Line and Batch File Sound Production Center (C) Copyright 1992 Rand Nowell RaLin Enterprises "Putting Bits Together" (tm) ┌───── PROGRAM MANUAL ─────┐ │ August 26, 1992 │ └──────────────────────────┘ - MANUAL CONTENTS - LEGAL STUFF...........................i OVERVIEW..............................1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS...................1 COMMAND SYNTAX........................1 Minimum Variables...................1 DISPLAY SCREEN......................2,3 SCRIPT FILE COMMENTS..................3 SWITCHES..........................2,3,4 (/f) & (/fs) Sound Script.........2 (/s) No Display...................3 (/m) & (/ms) Music Script.........3 (/a) & (/a2) Alarms...............4 (/k) Kill Sound...................4 ERRORCODES............................4 FILE PLACEMENT........................4 SHAREWARE MESSAGES....................4 REGISTRATION, WHY.....................5 DISTRIBUTION..........................5 AUTHOR CONTACT......................5,6 SUPPORT...............................6 ACKNOWLADGEMENTS......................6 Copyright: i Sound Off!, the program and documentation, is not a Public Domain or Free program. It is the Copyrighted (C)1992 work of Rand Nowell dba Ralin Enterprises. All rights are reserved. Copying, duplicating, selling or otherwise distributing this product except as noted in the Distribution Policy below is a violation of Federal Copyright Law. Distribution: 1. Feel free to distribute the Shareware version of this program as often as you like to any interested parties. Distribution to Electronic Bullentin Boards is encouraged. 2. Please do not distribute this program without all the original related files such as documentation, readme files, registration forms etc. 3. Please distribute ONLY the original authenticated ZIP format file. 4. Please obtain our written permission before including the program with any "bundled" software packages. 5. Please do not accept payment for the program; a copying fee of $5.00 per diskette may be charged by a non-profit user-group. 6. Please do not alter the program or documentation in any way. 7. Individuals, groups, vendors or other software distribution companies which market diskettes containg shareware or test-drive evaluation programs, for profit, must obtain written permission from RaLin Enterprises prior to distribution. ************************* DISCLAIMER ***************************** This program is supplied "as is" without warrenty of any kind. The entire risk of using, and results from the use of, is assumed by you the user. You assume all costs of repair, servicing and corrections stemming from the use of this program. Rand Nowell and/or RaLin Enterprises, or any other associated company of the program author will not be held liable for any damages from the use of this program. No warrenties are expressed or implied. ******************************************************************** To the original licensee of the REGISTERD version of The Program RaLin Enterprises DOES warrant that the program disk(s) on which the program is recorded, be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal use and service for a period of (90) ninety days from date of delivery as evidenced by your receipt. Our entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be replacement of the deffective disk not meeting the standards of this limited warranty. And in no case shall exceed the cost of reimbursment of monies paid for program registration. Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 1 OVERVIEW: Sound Off! can be used to generate sound patterns from the command line or from within a batch file. Frequencies can be given on the command line or read from a Script File. With Version 2.0 Sound Off! can now read and play "Real Music" script files. Please see the MUSIC.DOC file for more on this. Various switches are provided for Turning off display messages, Running an "Alarm", Turning off a "runaway" sound, Reading from script file. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Are few. IBM PC/XT/AT or better, running Dos 3x and up. Video: Runs on mono or color. Color is reccomended. Disks: Will run on floppy system, but performance is slow for scripts. COMMAND SYNTAX: (Basic Required Variables) SOUNDOFF [switch][scriptfile]<Start_Frequency><End_Frequency><Delay><Step> <AlarmNote1><AlarmNote2><Delay><Pause> Items in brackets [...] are optional, items in <...> are required. See examples for variables for Alarm Procedures. The Alarm switches must be used. Examples will be provided shortly. For now lets explore these options and parameters. The minimum needed for Sound Off! to work are the frequencies, the delay factor, and the step factor. Frequencies will hereafter be reffered to as "notes". * Start_Freq: This is the first note to be played, anything below about 50 probably won't be heard unless you have a special speaker setup for your PC. * End_Freq: This is the last note Sound Off! will play. After about 3000, the note again becomes hard to hear. * Delay: This is the time, in milliseconds, for Sound Off! to pause between the playing of each note. There are aprox. 1000 milliseconds to a second. I say aprox., because the PC timer is not as accurate as a watch. If you specify 1000 for a delay, the delay will not likely be an exact second. * Step: This specifies how big a jump Sound Off! should make between Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!! Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 2 notes. For instance, Start and End of 200 & 900 with a Step value of 50 will play the notes 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650...900 Experimentation with these values is the best teacher! To play a "tune" UP the scale make the Start_Frequency LESS than the End_Frequency. Reverse this to play DOWN the scale, The Start_Frequency should be GREATER than the End_Frequency. DISPLAY: When Sound Off! runs, it will create a display of characters. One will be written for each note played. The display is in color unless the system is in MONO mode. This color display is NOT shown during the playing of a script. At the end of the run, Sound Off! will display the command given to produce the sounds you just heard, so you can write it down for future use. If you do not want a display, see the '/S' switch below. While playing either a .SOS or .SOM script file, Sound Off! will tell you which script it is playing, it will also display the line number which it is currently playing from the script. SWITCHES: Switches may be upper or lower case. They must be proceeded by a forward slash, ie: /f and they must be seperated by a space, from any other variable. Only one switch at a time is used. There are no instances where more than one switch can be used. /f Instructs Sound Off! to read variables from a Sound scriptfile(.SOS). The syntax is SOUNDOFF /f filename. Program displays are active. The script file is a simple Ascii text file and can be created by any Ascii text file editor. You should give the scriptfile the extension of .SOS This extension is REQUIRED! /fs Runs the Sound script file with Displays turned off. SOUNDOFF /fs filename Our program TFREQ (Ver 2.0) will create script files for Sound Off! When you specify the filename on the command line, do not included the extension, it is assigned by Sound Off! If the script file resides in a directory that is included in your PATH statement, or in the current directory then only the filename is needed. If it does not then include a drive\dir\ with the filename. The script file must not include any alpha characters in the variable Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!! Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 3 lines. All variables must be numeric: from 0..9 Values must start in the first column, and must have a space between them. You can view the sample scripts included, but a small example is given here. Sound Scripts use only one frequency and one delay per note, no End_Freq or Step is used. Example Script: 400 50 640 10 330 25 440 50 550 200 COMMENTS IN SOUND SCRIPTS: If you wish to add comments to the script, put a 0 (ZERO) for the last frequency and delay, then insert comments after that. ie: 400 50 . . . 550 200 0 0 Note: This is a test script for John. eof filename.sos If you are careful, you can place comments to the right of the notes and delays. Be sure to move to the right at least 3 or 4 spaces. You can write a letter after the variables, it doesn't matter. As long as you remember to use a 0 for the last variables. If you don't, the program will abort with an error. /s The /S switch tells Sound Off! to run in "silent" mode. Program messages or displays will not show. This is useful when using Sound Off! in batch files. But.....error messages will still display. To run Sound Off! in silet mode just type as such: SOUNDOFF /s 440 990 75 25 You can use multiple Sound Off! commands in one batch file. Just put each one on a seperate line. Look at the sample batch files included for some examples. /m Tells Sound Off! to play a Music Script File (.SOM). /ms Play Music Script File with NO display. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Please read MUSIC.DOC for all other information on using Music Script Files. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!! Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 4 /a Alarm mode. SOUNDOFF /a 550 10 20 will start a constant beep, and will continue until a key is pressed. You can use this to alert you of when a process or program has finished. The first is the frequency, then the length of the sound, then how long to pause before playing the sound again. /a2 Calls the two tone alarm. Keypress aborts just as it does the single tone alarm. For this one we have the following: <1st Note> <2nd Note> <Delay> <Pause> See TEST_ALR.BAT for command syntax. You can enter any frequency,delay and pause you like. Again, experimentation is the best way to discover what works for you. /k Kill Sound. If you happen to start Sound Off! with a missing value, be it a frequency, a delay or what, you may find the program ending, with the speaker still blaring out a note. Just type SOUNDOFF /k and the racket will stop. This is also handy for programmers, I know I have forgotten to insert code to stop the sound at times, while testing my programs. This way you have a quick easy fix for that problem. ERRORCODES: Please see the file ERRLVL.LST for a listing of error codes returned by Sound Off! WHERE TO PUT IT: Sound Off! should be put in a directory that is included in your PATH statement. This way it can be called from ANY directory on your drive. If you do not know what the PATH statement is, please refer tou your DOS manual. If you don't have a PATH statement, it's strongley suggested that you implement it!! To save some typing, I suggest you put your script files in a directory thats in your path. This way you only need include the file name itself in the Sound Off! command. SHAREWARE MESSAGE: Its unfortanate that I even have to do this, but I know for a fact that there are copies out there, of my programs that are being used without Registration. I don't feel that to be fair. So......at the end of each and every call to Sound Off! a one line message will flash for a bit, asking you to Register your Shareware Programs, (including this one) :) This message WILL display, even if you turn off display via one of the command switches. Again, Im sorry about this....but if Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!! Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 5 you Register the program, it will be G...O...N...E!! REGISTRATION: If you find Sound Off! useful, and wish to continue its use, a Registration of $12.00 is in order. Registration is a ONE TIME fee and will get you a Registered Copy, free of any SHAREWARE notices, full support for this and all future copies. Updates to the program are at No Charge to Registered users. Updates are supplied via U.S. Mail or from our Support BBS (SOON!) Mail updates will require a small fee to cover material and shipping. A registration form has been provided for you to use. Please see REGCOM.DOC I have other useful programs available also. See PROGRAMS.TXT for a listing. If you program in Pascal you might be interested in my program TFREQ which allows you to test sound procedures of many types, and once you have what you want you can save it to a source file. Source files are written in a Pascal procedue format for inclusion in your programs. We have a somewhat rough version out at present, but Version 2.0 (major rewrite) is due out soon. This version will also write script files for Sound Off! DISTRIBUTION: You may distribute Sound Off! with any programs or batch files you create and give to others. The condition to this is: You must distribute this documentation and all supporting files with it. Not doing so will be considered an infringement of Federal Copyright Law. If you received the Original Zip file from RaLin Enterprises, I ask that you distribute that same file. The above applies to only the SHAREWARE release version. The REGISTERED version may NOT be distributed under any circumstances. AUTHOR CONTACT: I can be reached by several means. Phone: (510) 651-0253 Ask for Rand If you get my wife, or the answering machine, please leave your name, number, and a brief description of the problem, and I will get back to you ASAP! (See SUPPORT below) Net Mail: 1:215/777 or 1:161/42 Rand Nowell Compuserve ID: 76124,761 (Checked 1-2 times a month, minimum) Genie ID: R.NOWELL (Checked 1-2 times a month, minimum) FIDO Net: Shareware conference: Rand Nowell Mail: Rand Nowell Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!! Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 6 RaLin Enterprises 49728 Sundale Dr. Fremont, Ca. 94538 SUPPORT: Registered users receive full unlimited support, if I have to call you back, it will be on my dime! Unregistered users will receive help, but if I have to call, expect a collect one. I am in the process of setting up a "part time" support BBS here, you will be able to download my programs, and upgrade your current Registered programs as upgrades become available. For the time being this BBS will only run during certian hours, and be mostly limited to having only RaLin programs available. It is hoped we can get a dedicated system configured for the BBS before to long, and make MANY programs available. Where is the time for all this?.................... Registered users will be notified when the board is up! See the REGCOM.DOC file for our Registration plans. If you have any comments (good or bad) or suggestions, please use the Comments/Suggestions form attached to the Registration. Thank You! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Sound Off! was written with Turbo Pascal version 6.0, a product of Borland International. A GREAT programming language! Thanks Borland, for a job well done. To those of you who Register, Thanks for helping support the SHAREWARE CONCEPT! Registering this and other products, give the authors incentive to continue enhancements and to develop new products for your use. Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!!