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Revision 1.1 by cebix, 2000-07-28T12:42:28Z vs.
Revision 1.18 by cebix, 2003-10-23T13:12:08Z

# Line 1 | Line 1
1  
2 <        SIDPlayer, Version 4.0
2 >  SIDPlayer
3 >  A SID tune replayer
4  
5 <        A SID tune replayer for BeOS
5 <
6 <        Copyright (C) 1996-2000 Christian Bauer
7 <        Freely distributable
5 >  Copyright (C) 1996-2003 Christian Bauer
6  
7  
8   License
# Line 17 | Line 15 | See the file "COPYING" that is included
15   What is SIDPlayer?
16   ------------------
17  
18 < SIDPlayer is a replayer program for C64 music ("SID tunes"), like PlaySID
19 < on the Amiga or SIDPLAY for Unix. You can think of it as being a stripped-
20 < down C64 emulator that only emulates the CPU and the sound chip of the
21 < C64. SIDPlayer can replay SID tunes in the "PSID" file format, but it
22 < cannot run any C64 programs.
18 > SIDPlayer is a replayer program for C64 music ("SID tunes"), like PlaySID on
19 > the Amiga or SIDPLAY for Unix. You can think of it as being a stripped-down
20 > C64 emulator that only emulates the CPU and the sound chip of the C64.
21 > SIDPlayer can replay SID tunes in the "PSID" file format, but it cannot run
22 > any C64 programs.
23  
24  
25   Why would I want to listen to C64 music?
# Line 34 | Line 32 | sound chip (called "SID" - "Sound Interf
32   computers (as the Atari ST or the first Macs) had worse sound.
33  
34   The SID chip features three oscillators with selectable waveform, ADSR
35 < envelope generators, programmable resonance filters and special effects
36 < like ring modulation. With the aid of the CPU, it can also replay 4-bit
37 < sampled sounds. SIDPlayer emulates all features of the SID chip, including
38 < the filters.
35 > envelope generators, programmable resonance filters and special effects like
36 > ring modulation. With the aid of the CPU, it can also replay 4-bit sampled
37 > sounds. SIDPlayer emulates all features of the SID chip, including the
38 > filters.
39  
40   There were (and are still) many composers programming excellent music for
41   the C64 and thousands of tunes have been converted for use with SID tune
# Line 46 | Line 44 | SID tunes is that they take very little
44   in size.
45  
46  
47 + System Requirements
48 + -------------------
49 +
50 + SIDPlayer runs on all Unix systems supported by SDL (which includes Linux,
51 + FreeBSD, Solaris and Irix) and on BeOS R4.5 or later versions.
52 +
53 + Successfully tested systems include:
54 + - Linux/i386
55 + - BeOS/x86 R5
56 + - BeOS/ppc R5
57 +
58 +
59   Supported file formats
60   ----------------------
61  
# Line 54 | Line 64 | files (these have the signature "PSID" i
64   available on the Internet is in this format.
65  
66  
67 < Using SIDPlayer
68 < ---------------
67 > Installing SIDPlayer
68 > --------------------
69 >
70 > See the file "INSTALL".
71 >
72  
73 < SIDPlayer can be started from the Tracker or from the Shell. If you give
74 < the name of a PSID file as an argument from the Shell or drag a PSID file
62 < onto the SIDPlayer icon from the Tracker, that file is loaded and played.
63 <
64 < The SIDPlayer window some information about the currently loaded PSID file
65 < and has the usual tapedeck-like controls for pausing, restarting and
66 < stopping the replay and for selecting the next or previous song contained
67 < in the PSID file. The number of the song currently playing and the total
68 < number of songs in the loaded PSID file are displayed to the right of the
69 < tapedeck buttons. The slider in the bottom right of the window can be used
70 < to adjust the replay speed.
73 > Using SIDPlayer under BeOS
74 > --------------------------
75  
76 < Clicking and holding the right mouse button in the SIDPlayer window will show
77 < a pop-up menu with three items:
76 > SIDPlayer can be started from the Tracker or from the Shell. If you give the
77 > name of a PSID file as an argument from the Shell or drag a PSID file onto
78 > the SIDPlayer icon from the Tracker, that file is loaded and played.
79 >
80 > The SIDPlayer window displays some information about the currently loaded
81 > PSID file and has the usual tapedeck-like controls for pausing, restarting
82 > and stopping the replay and for selecting the next or previous song
83 > contained in the PSID file. The number of the song currently playing and the
84 > total number of songs in the loaded PSID file are displayed to the right of
85 > the tapedeck buttons. The slider in the bottom right of the window can be
86 > used to adjust the replay speed.
87 >
88 > The SIDPlayer menu has three items:
89  
90   - "About SIDPlayer" shows some information about SIDPlayer
91 < - "Sound Control" opens the sound control window
91 > - "Sound Control" opens the sound control window (see below)
92   - "Quit" quits SIDPlayer
93  
94   To load another PSID file, drag it into the SIDPlayer window. To quit
# Line 88 | Line 103 | Some functions of SIDPlayer can also be
103    Right arrow: Next song
104    Q          : Quit
105  
91 SIDPlayer can also be used as an input plugin for CL-Amp by Claes Löfqvist.
92 Simply copy the program to your CL-Amp "Plugins" directory (you have to copy
93 it, placing a link won't work) and rename it to "in_SIDPlayer".
106  
107 + Using SIDPlayer under Unix
108 + --------------------------
109 +
110 + SIDPlayer currently only works as a command line application. It is invoked
111 + as follows:
112 +
113 +  sidplayer FILE [song_number]
114 +
115 + "FILE" is the name of the PSID file to be loaded. The optional "song_number"
116 + specifies the number of the song to be player (instead of the default song).
117 + SIDPlayer cannot detect when a song has finished, so you have to use Ctrl-C
118 + to quit it.
119 +
120 + SIDPlayer accepts a number of command line arguments. Type "sidplayer --help"
121 + to get a list.
122  
123 < The Sound Control window
124 < ------------------------
123 > If you have a Catweasel MK3 PCI card with a SID chip installed you can
124 > redirect the output of SIDPlayer to the card by specifying the "--cwsid on"
125 > command line argument. Visit www.jschoenfeld.de for more information about
126 > the Catweasel card.
127 >
128 >
129 > The Sound Control window (BeOS only)
130 > ------------------------------------
131 >
132 > Sound post-processing is controlled with the "Effect" pop-up menu and the
133 > "Delay" and "Feedback" sliders. The available effects are "None" (no post-
134 > processing), "Reverb" (simple reverb) and "Spatial" (reverb with phase
135 > shift, intended for headphone users).
136  
137   The checkbox labeled "Filters" is used to turn the emulation of the SID
138   filters on or off.
139  
140 < The eight slider gadgets in the right part of the window control the
141 < stereo panning and volume of each of the four voices (3 sythesized
142 < voices, 1 sampled voice).
140 > The "New SID Chip" checkbox selects the type of SID chip to be emulated.
141 > Currently this only affects some combined waveforms.
142 >
143 > The eight slider gadgets in the right part of the window control the stereo
144 > panning and volume of each of the four voices (3 synthesized voices, 1
145 > sampled voice).
146  
147  
148   Where do I get PSID files
149   -------------------------
150  
151   The two largest collections of SID tunes are the "High Voltage" SID
152 < Collection (http://www.dhp.com/~shark/c64music) and the "NemeSIDs"
153 < archive (ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/sidmusic). These have been used
154 < for testing during the development of SIDPlayer and they should all work.
152 > Collection (http://hvsc.c64.org) and the "NemeSIDs" archive
153 > (ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/sidmusic). These have been used for testing
154 > during the development of SIDPlayer and they should all work.
155 >
156 > Twenty demonstration SID tunes are included with SIDPlayer in the "PSID
157 > Demo" directory.
158 >
159  
160 < Twelve demonstration SID tunes are included with SIDPlayer in the
161 < "PSID Demo" directory.
160 > Support
161 > -------
162 >
163 > Updates of SIDPlayer are available on the official SIDPlayer home page:
164 >
165 >  http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/SPMain.html
166  
167  
168   History
# Line 137 | Line 186 | V4.0 - Now based on Frodo V5 CPU/SID cod
186         faster/slower buttons by slider, added popup menu and sound control
187         window, ported to BeOS R5 with new Media Kit, implemented CIA timer
188         speed control, and SIDPlayer can now also be used as a CL-Amp plugin
189 + V4.1 - Runs as a command line application under Unix (requiring SDL),
190 +       preferences items can be passed on the command line, and SIDPlayer
191 +       can now also be used as a SoundPlay plugin
192 + V4.2 - Fixed writes to mirrored SID registers, output to WAV file is possible
193 +       in SDL version
194 + V4.3 - Added support for Catweasel SID hardware in SDL version (use option
195 +       "--cwsid on"), CIA timer speed control now actually works
196 + V4.4 - Fixed a problem with the wrong replay routine being called when the
197 +       IRQ vector was changed. Mastercomposer tunes (and probably others)
198 +       not play correctly. [Thanks to Stefano Tognon.]
199 +
200 +
201 + Acknowledgements
202 + ----------------
203 +
204 + Special thanks go to Claes Löfqvist and Marco Nelissen for their help with
205 + adding CL-Amp and SoundPlay plugin support.
206  
207  
208   Christian Bauer

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