ViewVC Help
View File | Revision Log | Show Annotations | Revision Graph | Root Listing
root/cebix/SIDPlayer/README
Revision: 1.3
Committed: 2000-09-18T22:41:23Z (24 years, 1 month ago) by cebix
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.2: +45 -30 lines
Log Message:
updated documentation

File Contents

# User Rev Content
1 cebix 1.1
2     SIDPlayer, Version 4.0
3    
4     A SID tune replayer for BeOS
5    
6     Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Christian Bauer
7     Freely distributable
8    
9    
10     License
11     -------
12    
13     SIDPlayer is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
14     See the file "COPYING" that is included in the distribution for details.
15    
16    
17     What is SIDPlayer?
18     ------------------
19    
20 cebix 1.3 SIDPlayer is a replayer program for C64 music ("SID tunes"), like PlaySID on
21     the Amiga or SIDPLAY for Unix. You can think of it as being a stripped- down
22     C64 emulator that only emulates the CPU and the sound chip of the C64.
23     SIDPlayer can replay SID tunes in the "PSID" file format, but it cannot run
24     any C64 programs.
25 cebix 1.1
26    
27     Why would I want to listen to C64 music?
28     ----------------------------------------
29    
30     The C64 had the most advanced sound capabilities of all home computers in
31     the early 80's. While other computers of that time were only able to produce
32     beeps, the C64 had a complete 3-voice analog synthesizer on its MOS 6581
33     sound chip (called "SID" - "Sound Interface Device"). Even some more modern
34     computers (as the Atari ST or the first Macs) had worse sound.
35    
36     The SID chip features three oscillators with selectable waveform, ADSR
37 cebix 1.3 envelope generators, programmable resonance filters and special effects like
38     ring modulation. With the aid of the CPU, it can also replay 4-bit sampled
39     sounds. SIDPlayer emulates all features of the SID chip, including the
40     filters.
41 cebix 1.1
42     There were (and are still) many composers programming excellent music for
43     the C64 and thousands of tunes have been converted for use with SID tune
44     replayers on nearly every existing computer platform. One big advantage of
45     SID tunes is that they take very little hard disk space: most are only 4-8K
46     in size.
47    
48    
49     Supported file formats
50     ----------------------
51    
52     The only SID tune file format supported by SIDPlayer is single-file PSID
53     files (these have the signature "PSID" in the first 4 bytes). Most SID music
54     available on the Internet is in this format.
55    
56    
57     Using SIDPlayer
58     ---------------
59    
60 cebix 1.3 SIDPlayer can be started from the Tracker or from the Shell. If you give the
61     name of a PSID file as an argument from the Shell or drag a PSID file onto
62     the SIDPlayer icon from the Tracker, that file is loaded and played.
63    
64     The SIDPlayer window displays some information about the currently loaded
65     PSID file and has the usual tapedeck-like controls for pausing, restarting
66     and stopping the replay and for selecting the next or previous song
67     contained in the PSID file. The number of the song currently playing and the
68     total number of songs in the loaded PSID file are displayed to the right of
69     the tapedeck buttons. The slider in the bottom right of the window can be
70     used to adjust the replay speed.
71 cebix 1.1
72 cebix 1.3 The SIDPlayer menu has three items:
73 cebix 1.1
74     - "About SIDPlayer" shows some information about SIDPlayer
75     - "Sound Control" opens the sound control window
76     - "Quit" quits SIDPlayer
77    
78     To load another PSID file, drag it into the SIDPlayer window. To quit
79     SIDPlayer, close the window or select the "Quit" menu item.
80    
81     Some functions of SIDPlayer can also be controlled with the keyboard:
82     P : Play/pause
83     S : Stop
84     N : Next song
85     Esc/Space : Stop
86     Left arrow : Previous song
87     Right arrow: Next song
88     Q : Quit
89    
90     SIDPlayer can also be used as an input plugin for CL-Amp by Claes Löfqvist.
91     Simply copy the program to your CL-Amp "Plugins" directory (you have to copy
92     it, placing a link won't work) and rename it to "in_SIDPlayer".
93    
94    
95     The Sound Control window
96     ------------------------
97    
98 cebix 1.3 Sound post-processing is controlled with the "Effect" pop-up menu and the
99     "Delay" and "Feedback" sliders. The available effects are "None" (no post-
100     processing), "Reverb" (simple reverb) and "Spatial" (reverb with phase
101     shift, intended for headphone users).
102    
103 cebix 1.1 The checkbox labeled "Filters" is used to turn the emulation of the SID
104     filters on or off.
105    
106 cebix 1.3 The "New SID Chip" checkbox selects the type of SID chip to be emulated.
107     Currently this only affects some combined waveforms.
108    
109     The eight slider gadgets in the right part of the window control the stereo
110     panning and volume of each of the four voices (3 synthesized voices, 1
111     sampled voice).
112 cebix 1.1
113    
114     Where do I get PSID files
115     -------------------------
116    
117     The two largest collections of SID tunes are the "High Voltage" SID
118 cebix 1.3 Collection (http://hvsc.c64.org) and the "NemeSIDs" archive
119     (ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/sidmusic). These have been used for testing
120     during the development of SIDPlayer and they should all work.
121    
122     Twenty demonstration SID tunes are included with SIDPlayer in the "PSID
123     Demo" directory.
124    
125    
126     Support
127     -------
128    
129     Updates of SIDPlayer are available on the official SIDPlayer home page:
130 cebix 1.1
131 cebix 1.3 http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/SPMain.html
132 cebix 1.1
133    
134     History
135     -------
136    
137     V1.0 - First release
138     V2.0 - SID filter emulation, better envelope generation
139     V2.1 - Implemented notch filter, 60Hz replay now works, added faster/
140     slower buttons, compiled for BeOS DR8
141     V2.2 - Improved the 6510, triangle waveform is now 12 bits, output
142     clipping, stereo output, corrected SID sustain behaviour,
143     reading from a write-only SID register returns the last byte
144     written to the SID, combined waveforms sampled from a 6581R4
145     V2.3 - Corrected BRK, DCP, ARR and LAS instructions, volume levels up
146     to 200% possible, compiled for BeOS DR9
147     V2.4 - Shows name/author/copyright in ISO-Latin1
148     V2.5 - Converted panning/volume sliders to BSlider class
149     V3.0 - Unified PPC/x86 release
150     V4.0 - Now based on Frodo V5 CPU/SID code (more efficient CPU emulation,
151     post-processing effects (reverb, spatial), prefs manager), replaced
152     faster/slower buttons by slider, added popup menu and sound control
153     window, ported to BeOS R5 with new Media Kit, implemented CIA timer
154     speed control, and SIDPlayer can now also be used as a CL-Amp plugin
155    
156    
157     Christian Bauer
158     <Christian.Bauer@uni-mainz.de>