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PTPLAYER.DOC
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Text File
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1994-12-16
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4KB
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99 lines
PT-PLAYER version 1.03
----------------------
(patched version)
A Protracker Module-Player for Atari ST (released 07/12/1994)
Coded by Petri Kuittinen (alias The Eye of Brainwash Company!)
Play routine by Martin Griffiths (Griff of EI)
General
-------
This program is freeware. It means you can copy and use it freely as
long as this file and all the other files related to this program are
copied with it and remain unchanged. Donations are of course always
welcome (I'm a poor student). ;-)
This is program is supposed to play Noise- and ProTracker module files
via Yamaha-2149 sound chip. The sound output is 17.1 Khz mono PCM sound
with 12-bit dynamics. This program works on all resolutions and on all
screen refresh rates. It works on all Atari ST/STE models (with only 0.5
Mb RAM you might have trouble playing large mods). It doesn't work
correctly on machines with 32-bit 680x0 processors (eg. Atari Falcon and
TT).
History
-------
I was fed up using the current crap mod-players which existed for Atari
ST. All of them had at least few of the following faults:
- Poor sound quality (noisy, only 8 bits dynamics).
- No real time volume variation.
- Protracker effects don't play correctly/at all.
- Lock up with Midi-data (or even keyboard data!).
- Only work on low or med. resolution and under 50 Hz screen refresh
rate.
To correct the situation I spent few hours coding a small GEM front end
(actually my first GEM prg!) and combined it with Griff's magnificent
play routine. It took me many hours to to fix few bugs in it and to get
it work independent of screen refresh rate. Griff's play routine uses
the original Amiga PT-player source, so it really plays all the effects
correctly, except filter setups (there are no filters in ST!) and CIA
tempo values (I have fixed the code to approximate the tempo value with
the nearest speed value. This is not a perfect solution).
Manual
------
Pt-player is very easy to use. Just start the program and after that a
dialog box, with the title 'PT-PLAYER v1.03', should appear on the
screen. Pressing left mouse button on the title bar will show the
credits. Below that reads the status (normally 'Waiting for selection')
and below that is the module name. If there is no module in memory, name
is a sequence of lines ('---------'). There are three buttons in the
bottom of the dialog box: LOAD, PLAY and EXIT. LOAD will load a
module-file to memory using standard GEM file selector. Program will
warn you with alert boxes if you try to load a file which is not NT/PT
mod-file. Pressing PLAY with left mouse button will start playing a
module if there is one in memory. The play routine takes nearly all
processor time on standard Atari ST. No other action is possible while
playing. Pressing space bar will stop playing. Pressing EXIT will exit
program.
You can also install this program for modules. PT-player will then
automatically load the first file given for it.
Known bug
---------
If you start the playing with a key (by changing the 'Play' button to a
default one with a RSC-editor or by using an extended dialog handler)
instead of mouse, module will restart to play as soon as you'll stop it.
This is probably because PT-Player 'steals' all the interrupts.
Greetings for this version go to:
---------------------------------
- Eero Tamminen for the autoload/basepage patch.
Contact the author for ideas, bug reports, demo stuff etc. via:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Electronic mail: eye@niksula.cs.hut.fi (internet)
Ordinary mail: Petri Kuittinen
Timpurinkuja 1 C 39
SF-02600 Espoo
FINLAND