AKA
Submitted by ascii on Mon, 2006-04-24 23:41. Site MaintenancePerson/Company pages now have a new field: AKA. Freelinking links will search the AKA field if there is no match among page titles. So now AXE and Ian Slavin should link to the same page, for example.
NB. text matches must be exact. This means that only one alternative moniker can go in the AKA field.
I suggest we stick to a convention, that real names are used in page titles if at all possible, and the moniker goes in the AKA field.
Tasword Two
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Mon, 2006-04-24 23:05. Utility
1990
Tasword Two for the ZX Spectrum is probably the most famed word processor for that platform and this is the ‘conversion’ for the Coupé.
As can bee seen the screen uses a pseudo-64 column mode with a cut down character set in MODE 1, similar to WordMaster in the PGC DTP Pack.
PDF manual scan at http://www.samcoupe-pro-dos.co.uk
ProTracker 2
Submitted by Stefan Drissen on Sun, 2006-04-23 22:59. Utility
The demo songs that were released were copied from Amiga demo called Impact (I was facinated by Amiga music at the time of writing the Protracker for SAM)
1996
Music creation software. Similar to E-Tracker in many ways, but prettier and easier to use. It was capable of handling more patterns, more instruments, and (most importantly) more effects which are applied to notes - such as tremolo and portamento.
It appeared on the market relatively late, several years after E-Tracker had gained a virtual monopoly, and never seemed to become heavily used. It also shipped without a compiler, although ProTracker 2 compiler was written by another programmer a few months later and released on Persona’s Blitz disk magazine.
(Note that the following is written from the perspective of the Sam, so in SimCoupe for F0-F9 read number pad keys 0-9, for SYMBOL read left-control, for CNTRL read right-control or left-alt, for EDIT read right-alt)
Glossary
Music is arranged in patterns of (up to) 64 notes. Patterns can be played in any order, the order is defined by the song list. Each note is played using a sample (actually chip music, but defines the variation of volume and pitch over time) and optionally an ornament (extra effects overlaid on the sample, which alter pitch a whole number of semitones). Each row can also contain an effect, which make various changes to the note, or other control such as song position etc.
The Sam soundchip has six channels, you can choose MODE 3 or 6 to change how many are visible at one time (in mode 6 you can see a note’s ornament or its effect but not both).
There are five bookmark positions, associated with F7, F8, F9, F4, F5 which initially are set to 0, 16, 32, 48, 63 respectively.
A frame lasts one fiftieth of a second (-0.16%)
There are 256 tone numbers in one octave
Keyboard
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| QAOP | Move the pointer |
| Space | select items at the pointer |
| Cursors left, right | move the cursor across different note values and tracks |
| Cursors up, down | move through notes within the pattern |
| EDIT | toggle edit mode |
| return | play note at current pattern position |
| CTRL + return | insert a note at the current track and pattern position, shifting later notes down |
| delete | clear the note at the current track and pattern position |
| CTRL + delete | delete the note at the current track and pattern position, shifting later notes up |
| CAPS | toggle displaying ornaments or effects when showing 6 channels |
| F7, F8, F9, F4, F5 | move to bookmark |
| SHIFT + F7, F8, F9, F4, F5 | start playing from bookmark (pattern) |
| SYMBOL + F7, F8, F9, F4, F5 | start playing from bookmark (song) |
| CNTRL + F7, F8, F9, F4, F5 | set bookmark to current position |
| F3, F6 | Octave up and down |
| SYMBOL + cursors left, right | previous/next pattern |
| SHIFT + cursors left, right | previous/next song position |
| CNTRL + cursors left, right | previous/next sample |
| CNTRL + cursors up, down | previous/next ornament |
| CNTRL + number | set editskip |
| SHIFT + F0 | Cut track |
| SHIFT + F1 | Copy track |
| SHIFT + F2 | Paste track |
| SYMBOL + F0 | Cut pattern |
| SYMBOL + F1 | Copy pattern |
| SYMBOL + F2 | Paste pattern |
| SHIFT + SYMBOL + D | Disk operations |
| SHIFT + SYMBOL + S | Sample editor |
| SHIFT + SYMBOL + O | Ornament editor |
| SHIFT + SYMBOL + E | Edit menu |
| SHIFT + SYMBOL + T | Setup menu |
| SHIFT + SYMBOL + z,x,c,v,b,n | Toggle channel enable |
ProTracker 2 compiler
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Sun, 2006-04-23 22:10. Utility
1997
The files saved by the ProTracker 2 editor are very large, and the music playing routine supplied by BZYK is rather slow. This program solves those problems, by converting a large file into a much smaller one which can be interpreted very quickly.
The routine which plays these music files runs in (usually much less than) half the time it takes the standard E-Tracker music player to run, so it is very suitable for use in demos and games where cpu power needs to be conserved.
MNEMOdemo
Submitted by ascii on Sun, 2006-04-23 22:10. Demo
1995
Three part demo with which MNEMOtech instantly staked a claim to the crown of the Sam demo scene.
SamMines
Submitted by ascii on Sun, 2006-04-23 22:10. Game
1995
A machine code minesweeper game, featuring almost every feature that has ever been featured in a minesweeper game, such as configurable board sizes, moving mines, inert squares, automatic clearing and sampled sound effects (by Ian Collier).
MNEMOtech
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Sun, 2006-04-23 21:21.
A coding group formed in 1994 by Andrew Collier. Mostly concerned with the art of demo coding, but also released other programs in various genres. Founding MNEMOtech members were:
Andrew Collier
Ian Collier
David Zambonini
Dan Zambonini
Paul Horridge
Marc Broster
Paul Crompton
Wayne Coles
and were later joined by
Les Quinn
Martijn Groen
Graham Goring
James R Curry
Sean Bernard
Rob Pain
David Brant
Notable Releases:
SamMines
MNEMOdemo
ProTracker 2 compiler
Trivia:
Quite by accident, Martijn ended up being in both MNEMOtech and Entropy, as he accepted invitations from both Andrew Collier and Simon Cooke who each had sent them at the same time, not knowing about the other.
