| 1 |
|
| 2 |
SIDPlayer, Version 4.1 |
| 3 |
A SID tune replayer |
| 4 |
|
| 5 |
Copyright (C) 1996-2001 Christian Bauer |
| 6 |
|
| 7 |
|
| 8 |
License |
| 9 |
------- |
| 10 |
|
| 11 |
SIDPlayer is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. |
| 12 |
See the file "COPYING" that is included in the distribution for details. |
| 13 |
|
| 14 |
|
| 15 |
What is SIDPlayer? |
| 16 |
------------------ |
| 17 |
|
| 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? |
| 26 |
---------------------------------------- |
| 27 |
|
| 28 |
The C64 had the most advanced sound capabilities of all home computers in |
| 29 |
the early 80's. While other computers of that time were only able to produce |
| 30 |
beeps, the C64 had a complete 3-voice analog synthesizer on its MOS 6581 |
| 31 |
sound chip (called "SID" - "Sound Interface Device"). Even some more modern |
| 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 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 |
| 42 |
replayers on nearly every existing computer platform. One big advantage of |
| 43 |
SID tunes is that they take very little hard disk space: most are only 4-8K |
| 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 R4.5 |
| 57 |
|
| 58 |
|
| 59 |
Supported file formats |
| 60 |
---------------------- |
| 61 |
|
| 62 |
The only SID tune file format supported by SIDPlayer is single-file PSID |
| 63 |
files (these have the signature "PSID" in the first 4 bytes). Most SID music |
| 64 |
available on the Internet is in this format. |
| 65 |
|
| 66 |
|
| 67 |
Installing SIDPlayer |
| 68 |
-------------------- |
| 69 |
|
| 70 |
See the file "INSTALL". |
| 71 |
|
| 72 |
|
| 73 |
Using SIDPlayer under BeOS |
| 74 |
-------------------------- |
| 75 |
|
| 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 (see below) |
| 92 |
- "Quit" quits SIDPlayer |
| 93 |
|
| 94 |
To load another PSID file, drag it into the SIDPlayer window. To quit |
| 95 |
SIDPlayer, close the window or select the "Quit" menu item. |
| 96 |
|
| 97 |
Some functions of SIDPlayer can also be controlled with the keyboard: |
| 98 |
P : Play/pause |
| 99 |
S : Stop |
| 100 |
N : Next song |
| 101 |
Esc/Space : Stop |
| 102 |
Left arrow : Previous song |
| 103 |
Right arrow: Next song |
| 104 |
Q : Quit |
| 105 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 121 |
The Sound Control window (BeOS only) |
| 122 |
------------------------------------ |
| 123 |
|
| 124 |
Sound post-processing is controlled with the "Effect" pop-up menu and the |
| 125 |
"Delay" and "Feedback" sliders. The available effects are "None" (no post- |
| 126 |
processing), "Reverb" (simple reverb) and "Spatial" (reverb with phase |
| 127 |
shift, intended for headphone users). |
| 128 |
|
| 129 |
The checkbox labeled "Filters" is used to turn the emulation of the SID |
| 130 |
filters on or off. |
| 131 |
|
| 132 |
The "New SID Chip" checkbox selects the type of SID chip to be emulated. |
| 133 |
Currently this only affects some combined waveforms. |
| 134 |
|
| 135 |
The eight slider gadgets in the right part of the window control the stereo |
| 136 |
panning and volume of each of the four voices (3 synthesized voices, 1 |
| 137 |
sampled voice). |
| 138 |
|
| 139 |
|
| 140 |
Where do I get PSID files |
| 141 |
------------------------- |
| 142 |
|
| 143 |
The two largest collections of SID tunes are the "High Voltage" SID |
| 144 |
Collection (http://hvsc.c64.org) and the "NemeSIDs" archive |
| 145 |
(ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/sidmusic). These have been used for testing |
| 146 |
during the development of SIDPlayer and they should all work. |
| 147 |
|
| 148 |
Twenty demonstration SID tunes are included with SIDPlayer in the "PSID |
| 149 |
Demo" directory. |
| 150 |
|
| 151 |
|
| 152 |
Support |
| 153 |
------- |
| 154 |
|
| 155 |
Updates of SIDPlayer are available on the official SIDPlayer home page: |
| 156 |
|
| 157 |
http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/SPMain.html |
| 158 |
|
| 159 |
|
| 160 |
History |
| 161 |
------- |
| 162 |
|
| 163 |
V1.0 - First release |
| 164 |
V2.0 - SID filter emulation, better envelope generation |
| 165 |
V2.1 - Implemented notch filter, 60Hz replay now works, added faster/ |
| 166 |
slower buttons, compiled for BeOS DR8 |
| 167 |
V2.2 - Improved the 6510, triangle waveform is now 12 bits, output |
| 168 |
clipping, stereo output, corrected SID sustain behaviour, |
| 169 |
reading from a write-only SID register returns the last byte |
| 170 |
written to the SID, combined waveforms sampled from a 6581R4 |
| 171 |
V2.3 - Corrected BRK, DCP, ARR and LAS instructions, volume levels up |
| 172 |
to 200% possible, compiled for BeOS DR9 |
| 173 |
V2.4 - Shows name/author/copyright in ISO-Latin1 |
| 174 |
V2.5 - Converted panning/volume sliders to BSlider class |
| 175 |
V3.0 - Unified PPC/x86 release |
| 176 |
V4.0 - Now based on Frodo V5 CPU/SID code (more efficient CPU emulation, |
| 177 |
post-processing effects (reverb, spatial), prefs manager), replaced |
| 178 |
faster/slower buttons by slider, added popup menu and sound control |
| 179 |
window, ported to BeOS R5 with new Media Kit, implemented CIA timer |
| 180 |
speed control, and SIDPlayer can now also be used as a CL-Amp plugin |
| 181 |
V4.1 - Runs as a command-line application under Unix (requiring SDL), |
| 182 |
preferences items can be passed on the command line, and SIDPlayer |
| 183 |
can now also be used as a SoundPlay plugin |
| 184 |
|
| 185 |
|
| 186 |
Acknowledgements |
| 187 |
---------------- |
| 188 |
|
| 189 |
Special thanks go to Claes Löfqvist and Marco Nelissen for their help with |
| 190 |
adding CL-Amp and SoundPlay plugin support. |
| 191 |
|
| 192 |
|
| 193 |
Christian Bauer |
| 194 |
<Christian.Bauer@uni-mainz.de> |
