Date   : Tue, 04 Jan 2005 23:32:26 +0000
From   : Richard Gellman <splodge@...>
Subject: Re: Acornsoft Creative Sound

Yes and No....

Basically, Creative Sound was a book and accompanying floppies showing 
how to make decent sounds (i.e. other than that which can be imitated by 
pressing "Copy") using simple techniques. The programs are sample 
programs demonstrating these techniques in practice. Some are small (The 
program MINORDS (Minor Distraction [Pun intended]) is only 8 lines long, 
and provides a very soothing sound), and some are huge.

On Disc 2 (and the latter half of the book) the author explores 
something called MCL, which if I remember rightly was not created by the 
author (or indeed Acornsoft) but by a third party. MCL (Music 
Composition Language) essentially allows you to type music into a 
computer. Using characters to represent musical notations, etc.

The program "COMPILE" is an MCL compiler, that can compile four parts (3 
melodic, 1 percussive [natch]) of musical data, along with appropriate 
audio envelopes and key signature into interleaved binary data in 
memory. The second "half" of the program then plays this binary in 
sequence to very good effect.

The programs TLORDS and TUBELLS are actually COMPILE with sample DATA 
statements included. They are also "special" BASIC programs, in that 
loading them also loads in the compiled MCL data, thus precluding the 
need to compile manually (the process takes around 2 to 5 minutes, 
depending on complexity and length).

Now the player provided was only ever written in BASIC, but the basic 
(no pun intended) player routine is essentially .loop read pitch, read 
duration, send sound to queue if queue has space, jmp loop if not end. I 
once converted this sequence to assembler, and even got it to run on 
events (*FX 14), but I have no idea where said code is now.

So, if you can merge such a player program (it was about 100 lines, not 
very long) and the compiled MCL code into one executable file, then yes 
you could make "self-playing" sound programs.

-- Richard

F. Haroon wrote:

> This Acorn Creative Sound, can you create executable sound files from it?
>  
> Fiaz.
>
> */Richard Gellman <splodge@...>/* wrote:
>
>     Hi Barry,
>
>     Welcome back to the BBC Micro world :)
>
>     The attached Zip file has the two disc images. They are 80-track
>     single
>     sided standard DFS, and you'll need some way to get them onto 5.25"
>     floppies.
>
>     Once you get there, might I recommend the programs "TUBELLS" and
>     "TLORDS" from disc 2. Proof that 8-bit hardware can make some damn
>     fine
>     sounds :)
>
>     -- Richard
>
>     [attachment removed for list posting]
>
>     Barry Whyte wrote:
>
>     >Hi all, first post.
>     >
>     >As a kid I cut my programming teeth on a Model B, and
>     >had years of fun with it. Stupidly we sold it in the
>     >early 90's to make way for our 386SX PC.
>     >
>     >Anyway, I've been re-acquiring the hardware and
>     >software to rebuild my collection.
>     >
>     >One of the things I recently got off ebay was a sealed
>     >version of Acornsoft's Cre! ative Sound. The discs
>     >however have not survived the years and have bad
>     >sectors all over them.
>     >
>     >I've looked in all the usual archives but cannot find
>     >disc images for Creative Sound anywhere.
>     >
>     >Wonder if anybody has a copy and would be kind enough
>     >to supply disc images.
>     >
>     >Many thanks,
>     >Barry
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
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