Re: who

[Dave Laundon]

Me too...

> On 26 Nov 2017, at 09:38, David Sanders  wrote:
> 
> Me, for one.
> 
> On 25 Nov 2017 22:49, "Frode Tennebø"  wrote:
> who
> 

Re: Interlaced video

[Dave Laundon]

2008/5/23 Frode Tenneboe [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/magazines/SinclairUser/Issue099/Tape/SUIssue99-Megatape27.tzx.zip

 ..or more easily accessible:

 ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/sam-coupe/disks/demos/SimonGoodwin-512x384Interlace.zip

Thanks Frode.  Brings back memories loading a program on SAM from
tape (my laptop playing back the converted tzx file)  :-)

Here's Simon's vision finally realised 18 years on :-)
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/dlaundon/mode3+3a.jpg

and when the TV gets the fields the wrong way around...
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/dlaundon/mode3+3b.jpg

Unfortunately today the TV seems to be having trouble locking on to
SAM's signal.  It will periodically show a blank screen for half a
second or so, annoyingly frequently at times.  Also the picture seems
quite noisy (the photos don't really show it though).  On a previous
TV (years ago) it seemed like the composite signal and RGB signals
were interfering with each other (and one seemed to be offset from the
other by a few lines).  I wonder if something similar is happening
here (anyone know if it's possible to wire a scart lead without the
composite signal?  I had an idea it was still needed for some reason).

Dave.

Re: Interlaced video

[Dave Laundon]

2008/5/26 Colin Piggot [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 On a SAM RGB Scart cable the composite video output from the SAM (pin 19) is
 not connected. At the TV end, Pin 19 connects to Pin 16 via a 470ohm
 resistor - the diagram in the SAM manual of a RGB Scart lead just has a wire
 link between 16 and 19 but the pop a resistor in instead. If you don't have
 a suitable cable to canabalise I do have RGB Scart leads made up.

Hmm, I'll have to have a look at what mine is doing then.  I'm pretty
certain it has been used on a non-RGB TV in the past, so it looks like
there is a difference to the ones you provide.  I think it is an
original MGT/Samco one, with the T.V./MONITOR white label on one
end, but no label on the other end (didn't they have a similar label
on the other end?) - so maybe it has been messed about with at some
point!

Dave.

Interlaced video

[Dave Laundon]

2008/5/21 Thomas Harte [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Also, one further question: am I right to think that the Sam has no
 means of producing interlaced video?


It's funny you should mention that...  I recently got a new LCD TV (a nice
Samsung 32, unfortunately not Full HD though...) and just the other day I
thought I would dig Sam out and see how it looks on it.  It's been a while
since I've used my real Sam and it seems my floppy has finally died (an
original Citizen; it sounds like the usual stretched drive belt problem, but
that's another story), so I was restricted to playing about in BASIC for a
bit.  Anyway, it seems my TV doesn't realise the signal is not interlaced!

With a static display there is nothing to show it, but with fast movement (I
did a ROLL of a small area in a loop with PAUSE 1) it is clear that the TV
is interpreting pairs of Sam frames as the two fields of a single interlaced
frame.  In an extreme example I had a pair of ROLLs shifting an area left
then right and the TV shows a static image with a nice comb effect.

Makes me want to dig out those Fred issues with interlaced images on them
to see how they look.  If only my drive worked...  (Colin, do you still have
spare belts? :-)

Dave (de-lurking after ges).

Re: Interlaced video

[Dave Laundon]

2008/5/22 Colin Piggot [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 Now the question is, depending how the TV is interlacing the frames, and how
 many frames there's been since the SAM was powered up - when the 'Interlaced
 Pictures' from FRED are loaded the frames might show with the intended
 'interlacing', or be reversed - if 'A' is the frame with the top row, 'B' is
 the frame with the row to be shown below, your telly could interlace
 correctly so the TV displays with the lines ordered ABABAB, or could be out
 of order and display BABABA  (hope that makes sense!)

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that.  I guess it's going to be pretty
random.  I'll type that ROLL test in again and keep running it and see
if the orientation changes.  Kind of makes any applications difficult
without a calibration option!

I seem to remember there was a cover tape on one of the magazines that
had a new display mode that swapped between two screens at 50Hz or
something.  Can't remember if it was interlacing or some method of
increasing colours.  My memory is vague...

  Makes me want to dig out those Fred issues with interlaced images on
 them
  to see how they look.  If only my drive worked...  (Colin, do you still
 have
  spare belts? :-)

 Should do, I'll drop you an email in a bit once i've checked :)

Thanks.  Must get him up and running again :-)

Dave.

Re: Interlaced video

[Dave Laundon]

2008/5/22 Colin Piggot [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 Yes, it was Simon Goodwin's routine on a Crash cover tape in 1990 or so. On
 the frame interrupt it toggled between two screens with different palettes,
 which looked absolutely horrid though on the TV's I'd tried it on. Other
 routines in the issue did MODE 3 interlacing - flicking between MODE3
 screens saying it would give a screen resolution of 512x384, but it's not as
 the SAM only outputs non-interlaced video so again, it just appears as a bit
 of a flickery mess!

Ah right, another one for me to track down and try then!

 Out of curiosity, what model of TV is it you have?

It's a Samsung LE32R88

 Colin
 =
 Quazar : Hardware, Software, Spares and Repairs for the SAM Coupe
 1995-2008 - Celebrating 14 Years of developing for the SAM Coupe
 Website: http://www.samcoupe.com/

RE: Z80 Timings

[Dave Laundon]

Simon Owen wrote:
 Frame, Line and MIDI Out interrupts all last 128 tstates (MIDI In
 is likely
 to be the same, but untested).  Both frame and line interrupts
 begin at the start of the right border area.

Actually, the MIDI Out interrupt is different (shorter).  I don't remember
the exact details right now, but it's something like the duration of one
half bit of MIDI transmission.  I expect MIDI In is the same as MIDI Out.

Dave.

RE: Z80 Timings

[Dave Laundon]

Simon Owen wrote:
 There was 32
 tstate rounding, and further offsetting by 16 tstates, or something like
 that.  Those timings are still a mystery to me - any ideas?

Heh, it was just trial and error. :-)  The 32 tstates rounding must be the
resolution that the MIDI hardware can operate.  I don't know about the 16
tstate offset.  Maybe our idea of time-zero is actually wrong by 16 tstates
:-)

Dave.

RE: RE: Preferred plain text editor

[Dave Laundon]

Gavin Smith wrote:
 And interestingly, in relation to an earlier email of mine,
 it's written in SAM C - cool. Do you have the source? Can
 we have it? :) Did you do a later version that the one on
 Fred 60?

OK here's that later version of proType (from 1999):
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dave.laundon/ProType_1999.zip

Trying to find the source I came across several copies.  Now I need to work
out which is the correct one!  I've got them all out of SimCoupe into text
files, now for some comparing...

Dave.

RE: RE: Preferred plain text editor

[Dave Laundon]

Gavin Smith wrote:

 Like it craps out on you if you decide not
 to load or save a file etc. Speaking of which, it seems to look
 for a .p extension when loading files - can this be got round?
 Still, assuming it does indeed save plain text, that's my text
 editor of choice now :)

Oh, I don't remember the crapping out :-)  The saving/loading is done from
BASIC, so yes, it can be got round.  It is plain text, other than the first
four bytes, IIRC.  Again, could probably be got around I think.

 And interestingly, in relation to an earlier email of mine, it's
 written in SAM C - cool. Do you have the source? Can we have it?
 :) Did you do a later version that the one on Fred 60?

Mmm, yes.  I'm sure I can find the source somewhere.  Not sure if I want
to though - it's pretty horrendous, and I knew nothing about C at the time!

There is a later version - I shall have a root around tomorrow (today).  One
of the improvements IIRC is that the up and down cursor keys are a bit
better at, um, going up and down!

Glad you like it anyway :-)

Dave.

 *goes to get ice cream*
 Gavin

RE: Preferred plain text editor

[Dave Laundon]

Gavin Smith wrote:

 Simple question - I need a decent plain text editor on the SAM.
 Lean and neat, but nice to use (i.e. not vi ;)

 Is there one out there? Will it keep up with my typing? (120wpm...)

 Gavin

May I humbly suggest ProType from Fred 60?  It's crap in some (most) ways,
but I'm certain it should be able to keep up with your typing :-)

Dave.

RE: a thought (was RE: Moment of truth)

[Dave Laundon]

Geoff Winkless wrote:

 It occurred to me that one of the reasons I'm less likely to develop
 something for the sam is that, although comet is absolutely superb
 considering the hardware, it's not so easy as a nice (eg) windoze app
 would be.

I've used something called Assembly Studio 8X (http://asmstudio.acz.org/) a
few times and found it quite nice.  By default its output files have a
special header (for use by some sort of Texas Instruments calculator) but I
hacked together an output plugin for producing just the pure code.

 Now that we have the emulator (thanks to Allan and Si) we have an
 opportunity to make an app which links in an assembler (together with an
 automated upload), a decent editor and an inline debugger.

Automatic upload from Assembly Studio 8X would be a possibility as it has on
output plugin system.

Just thought I'd throw that in as something to start from.  Windows only
though :-/

Dave.

RE: a thought (was RE: Moment of truth)

[Dave Laundon]

Geoff Winkless wrote:
 *doh*

 I've also decided to make the source code available under the GNU
 General Public License. It will compile under Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0
 (service pack 2 or higher).

 I'll take a look, it might be pretty perfect.

Cool :-)  I missed that when I had a quick peek at the site earlier.  It's
been a while since I last looked.

You can get the pure-code output plugin here
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dave.laundon/asmplug.zip

Dave.

RE: Moment of truth

[Dave Laundon]

 Lets run a little poll. Can people fill in the following and reply

 1) Do you have an actual Sam Coupe:

Yes.

 2) Does it work?

Yes.

 3) Do you still use it?

Not really.  Once or twice a year maybe.  Simcoupe has made me lazy.

 4) How many bits of sam software have you got?

Several of the commercial games (although some shameful omissions), FREDs
from 57 onwards, loads of Soundbytes and other Quazar related stuff (Colin -
I /will/ resubscribe eventually, honest...) and a few odds and sods.

 5) Do you still actively seek new sam bits and pieces?

Not really.

 6) Would you buy a new game for the sam coupe if the price was right?

Possibly.

 7) What price would be right if you would?

Well it's not going to happen very often so it probably wouldn't matter.

 8) Would you develop a title for the sam still?

Probably not.

 9) Would you help develop a title for the sam?

I would help develop something, yes.  Probably only with programming though.

 10) Do you think that all the work put in to keep the sam alive is a waste
 of time?
 11) if yes to 10 then why?

Most likely, but that doesn't mean I would want it to end.  :-)

Dave Laundon.

RE: So long 2002, here comes 2003....

[Dave Laundon]

As I'm in an emailing mood...

Geoff Winkless wrote:
 Perhaps there's a localised group of Sam owners here in Leicestershire

Another Leicester-based Sam owner here!  :-)

Dave.

RE: sam instruction timings

[Dave Laundon]

Geoff Winkless wrote:
 border scrolltext jerking around occasionally

It can be difficult to synchronise an interrupt routine exactly when the CPU
is busy in the foreground - when the interrupt occurs the CPU has to finish
the current instruction first.  Could this explain it in your case?  It's
better to have the CPU sitting on a HALT when the time-critical interrupt
occurs so the timing is the same every time.

 As an aside, does anyone still have a real live SAM linked up -

Well, I still have mine available, although it's not been set up for almost
a year...

 I can't tell whether this problem is due to something in my
 code or SimCoupe's emulation
 - I'm pretty sure it never -used- to do this...

As someone who put in a lot of work getting the SimCoupe CPU timing more
accurate, I'm hoping this isn't the case - but I can't guarantee it :-)

Dave.

RE: sam instruction timings

[Dave Laundon]

Geoff Winkless wrote:
 OK, so my memory isn't too hot. Given that this code will 
 probably execute in screen time, is it quicker to do:

Ok, my first post here in ages, here goes...

Simplistic rule of thumb for timings on SAM - an instruction's cycles is
the official Z80 cycles rounded up to the next multiple of 4 (or 8 in
screen time), or,  4 (or 8) times the number of memory accesses;
whichever is greater.  When INs and OUTs are involved things get more
complicated!

E.g. (official/SAM normal/SAM screen)
INC A  - 4/4/8
INC HL - 6/8/8

So -
LD A, (HL)  - (2 memory accesses) - 8/16
AND C   - (1 memory access)   - 4/8
LD (HL), A  - - 8/16
  = 20/40
Or -
RES 0, (HL) - (4 memory accesses) - 16/32
RES 4, (HL) - - 16/32
  = 32/64

 It seems that method 2 runs quicker. I'd like to know why :)

Mmm, I'd have thought the first method would run quicker, even when it
was AND EE.  I'm confused now.  Anything else going on in the loop?

Hi all,
Dave.

RE: WOP GAMMA

[Dave Laundon]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Never heard of WOP GAMMA, its one of the best if not the best SAM
 game out I
 recon.  But the protection on the disc is iron clad!  I think
 Simon Cookes was
 to blame for that??  Anyway theres a demo on one of the fred
 disks FRED34 I
 think.  Anyone got a converted version out there?

 David

Well, I don't know about making available a copy of WopGamma itself, but
here's a short bit of code (a hacked version of the WopGamma boot sector)
that I used to get mine onto a normal SAM disk...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dave.laundon/WopGamma.bin

Now, it's been a while since I did it, but IIRC you just need to boot up SAM
with SAMDOS, load this bit of code to the beginning of a page somewhere high
(say, the page below DOS), then call it, after inserting your WopGamma disk.
It should load the WopGamma code after which you can save it to a new SAM
disk (with DOS) as Auto-something CODE 32768, 245760, 32768.

Enjoy!  :-)

Dave.

RE: ASCD 0.90 W.I.P. (and anyone interested in MIDI)

[Dave Laundon]

Aley Keprt wrote:
 Thanks.
 I tried it but can't manage to get it work in WinCoupe (I need to test i
 there). Whenever I start playback, the message press symbol to exit
 shortly appears and then it immediately closes (going back to main menu),
 like I presses symbol shift. But I don't press anything.

Thanks for giving it a go...

It sounds like you are not loading an e-tracker file (there a one or two on
the disk).  The Midi-tracker file is just a bunch of settings specifying how
each instrument in the e-tracker file should be played (program number,
velocity, etc.).  So to hear anything you have to load both an e-tracker
file *and* its corresponding Midi-tracker file before pressing play.

 Other MIDI program MIDI Sequencer works in WinCoupe, but there are some
 other problems with it. I'd like to know whether the emulation isn't
 correct, or the original program is ehmm... not-very-good. It
 takes over 10
 seconds to redraw whole screen in edit mode, and whenever I start
 playback a
 very loud home-less tone is generated before starting the
 actual playback.

Yes, I remember MIDI Sequencer being quite slow!  A lot of the user
interface is in BASIC IIRC (as is my program!)

 Also, I think it wouldn't be very clever to use MIDI simulator in DOS,
 because it would degrade digital-audio playback quality. Of course, this
 doesn't affect using real MIDI devices like MPU401.

Btw.. SimCoupé does no internal sequencing at the moment to give correct
MIDI _output_ timing (it tries to get the timing as SAM sees it correctly of
course!) - it just writes the data straight out to Windows when it gets it.
An implementation would be a lot easier than managing the SAA output, but
has not been done yet...

 Adding MIDI interrupts for demos gives more sense. I'd like to see it.
 Please could you tell me where can I get those demos?

I can put mine up soon...  I might just, err, sort out the scrolly text
first..  :-)  I'll reply again when it's sorted.

I'm not sure if anyone else thought about using MIDI for timing...

 Note:
 PAL speed is 1/64MHz. MIDI speed is 1/32MHz. It means that 2 bits are
 transmitted per line.
 Am I right?

Yep, that's right...

 How many bits are transmitted to complete one byte? If you say
 interrupt is
 generated 5 lines after issuing MIDI out, it means that one or two
 (start/)stop bits are added to each byte. I assume MIDI out interrupts are
 generated on line basis, exactly as the line and frame interrupts. Am I
 right?

Two extra bits are sent, yes.  The interrupts are not linked to screen lines
though.  When an output is made to a MIDI port the transmission starts
more-or-less straight away...  although the MIDI hardware seems to have a
resolution of 32 T-States (apparently at offsets of 12, 44, 76, etc from the
beginning of the frame).  The interrupt occurs one half-bit (96 T-States)
before the transmission completes, and lasts for those last 96 T-States (so,
shorter than other interrupts).  The TXFMST bit in LPEN is set throughout
the transmission, and outputting to the MIDI port is ignored if a byte is
already in the process of being sent.

Dave.

 Aley

RE: ASCD 0.90 W.I.P. (and anyone interested in MIDI)

[Dave Laundon]

Aley Keprt wrote:

 btw. I will add MIDI to DOS version, if somebody is interested. But is it
 worthy?
 What software does use it? I need to find one to test my emulation ;-)))

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dave.laundon/mtracker.zip

I was always planning to do something more with it, but I suppose I'll never
get around to it now  :-/

In a couple of other things I've done I've also used outputs to MIDI purely
for the interrupt that comes approx. 5 lines later.  I used the effect in a
Quazar sample player that created its own interrupts during top/bottom
border display so that it could release some CPU time to the foreground
program.

Dave Laundon.

RE: SimCoupé/Win32 updated to 0.81

[Dave Laundon]

Dave Whitmore wrote:

 Excellent - thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!

:-)

 One question - sorry if this seems ungrateful - what happened to
 RESET?

Um, in what way?

If you mean the fast reset - the ROM is temporarily hacked to bypass the
memory check, but this is an optional feature (Tools - options - system).
You can also override it one time by tapping reset twice.

If you mean something else then please explain...

 Dave

Dave (who had/s some part in programming SimCoupe/Win32 (albeit small in
comparison...))

RE: Sam Bits ond Bobs

[Dave Laundon]

 14, allegedly new, ASICs.
 15, assembled, but faulty SAM Main boards. (with ASIC but no ROM or
 RAM)

I could do with a SAA1099 if poss, please (or main board with one on if
not)...

Dave Laundon.

RE: Screen viewer 1.27

[Dave Laundon]

  http://homepage.ntlworld.com/simon.owen/blt6menu.jpg).  Not sure how
 Dave's
  latest CPU/timing changes will affect that yet...

 Thats Close. hope it gets 100% (More modemixing is yet to come ...)

 Edwin Blink

Well, after much guessing and fiddling and bodging and tweaking I've managed
to get it into a state where pretty much everything I've been testing with
works!  All except for Andrew's E-Tunes player, where the mid-screen scrolly
is one block to the left.  By changing a couple of values I can bring this
right, but then it breaks others.  Any clues/insights/etc would be most
welcome...!

Things I've been testing with that now seem to work -
Edwin's menu
'z-states' utility
Border scrollies in Lyra 3
Big on-screen scrolly in Mnemodemo 1 (that was a tough one!)
Mod Player (with CLUT as the output)
Fred 65 menu
Mnemodemo 2

If there are any obvious ones I've not tried, let me know!

Dave Laundon.

RE: Screen viewer 1.27

[Dave Laundon]

 BTW
 If you need a a demo to test your timings I could send you my mode3/4 mode
 mixing demo
 (as featured on blitz 6)

 Edwin Blink

 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://home.wanadoo.nl/blink/samcoupe/index.htm

If you could let me have a copy of that, that would be great, as I'm
currently working on the CPU timing side of SimCoupe.

Thanks.

Dave Laundon.

RE: Diskimage manager

[Dave Laundon]

Edwin Blink wrote:
 Havn't had many responses yet for my SAM coupe screen viewer or
 ideas for a
 diskimage manager.

 Did any of you give it some thoughts ?

I think a Diskimage Manager is a great idea.  It would be handy to have
multiple instances running allowing files to be dragged from one image to
another.

As for the Screen Viewer - support for the compressed version of .SAD disks
would be nice (all of my disks are in this format).

 Edwin Blink

Dave.

BTW. sorry about the sig. below - it's beyond my control...  (of course, if
it doesn't appear then you have permission to ignore this bit :)

---
Catalyst Computer Systems Ltd.  See our Web Page at http://www.catalyst-uk.com
Phone : +44(0)116 230 1500, Fax : +44(0)116 230 1522, Company Reg No 2382593, 
Registered Office : 19/20 Baxter Gate, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 1TG.

RE: Diskimage manager

[Dave Laundon]

Edwin Blink wrote:

 I think a Diskimage Manager is a great idea.  It would be handy to have
 multiple instances running allowing files to be dragged from one image to
 another.

 Good Idea. Havent sorted out exporting of files by drag and dropping. But
 thats
 sure handy.

How about dragging a file from the Diskimage Manager to a disk image
directly too?

 do .SAD diskimages support compression ?

The contents are GZ compressed, I believe, after some common .SAD header.
I'm sure Aley can fill in the details...?


 Update of Enhanchments In Screen viewer 1.12:

 -2x Zoom screen viewing mode

How about making the viewing area stretchable?

 Edwin Blink

Dave.

RE: Diskimage manager

[Dave Laundon]

Oops, I didn't think the first one was going to arrive - I sent it from the
wrong email address.

Does that mean any old Tom, Dick or Harry can post a message here without
subscribing?

(Apologies if your name is Tom, Dick or Harry ;)

Dave.

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Behalf Of Dave Laundon
 Sent: 10 May 2000 19:54
 To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
 Subject: RE: Diskimage manager


 Edwin Blink wrote:

  I think a Diskimage Manager is a great idea.  It would be handy to have
  multiple instances running allowing files to be dragged from
 one image to
  another.
 
  Good Idea. Havent sorted out exporting of files by drag and
 dropping. But
  thats
  sure handy.

 How about dragging a file from the Diskimage Manager to a disk image
 directly too?

  do .SAD diskimages support compression ?

 The contents are GZ compressed, I believe, after some common .SAD header.
 I'm sure Aley can fill in the details...?

 
  Update of Enhanchments In Screen viewer 1.12:
 
  -2x Zoom screen viewing mode

 How about making the viewing area stretchable?

  Edwin Blink

 Dave.

RE: 256 or 512k?

[Dave Laundon]

Frans van Egmond wrote:

 I noticed two chips (both with a number 256 on them) assuming these are
the
 RAM chips, I couldn't find other chips resembling RAM chips in my SAM,
this
 would make 512K, right?
 However when switched on the SAM reports 256k...
 Is it faulty?

 Frans

Each chip is 256K x 4-bits making 256KB in total.  In 512K machines there
are four chips, the other two being accessible without having to take SAM
appart, behind the small plastic cover in the middle of the base.

Dave.

Eh up, what's goin' on 'ere then?

[Dave Laundon]

For the past couple of days I've noticed that I was receiving messages from
Sam-Users at work that never appeared at home.  I've just done a quick 'who'
to sam-users-request and found that I no longer exist, so I've just had to
resubscribe!

Whoever done this, could they explain?  Or could some automated process have
done this?

Dave Laundon.

RE: Wincoupe

[Dave Laundon]

Si Owen wrote:

 Shift-backspace for Delete is already in as I kept trying to use
 it!  Insert
 is a much better choice for INV that I currently have, and the others are
 good and general too.

Great!  Anyone remember a program I wrote called ProType (appeared on Fred
60)?  That used INV to toggle Insert/Overwrite mode, so that should work out
just right!

  I have a program that plays E-Tracker tunes out of Sams MIDI port.

 If you're willing to send me your program, I'll take a look once I've tied
 up some more loose ends...

Ok, I'll send you a .dsk of that before the day's out.  Note, though, that
it relies on the MIDI out interrupt which occurs approx. 5.5 scan lines
after the write to the MIDI port, also the MIDI status flags.  The one-bit
drivers on VMPR (IIRC) aren't required though (I doubt if anything uses
those?)

 Si

Dave Laundon.

RE: Wincoupe

[Dave Laundon]

Talking about customising the keys in WinCoupe, could we have options for
customising the Insert/Home/Page Up block of keys?  (Or any other non used
key for that matter)  Several SAM utilities use F4/F1 for page up/down; it
would be handy if it was possible to map those keys to Page Up and Page
Down.  Maybe map Shift+Backspace to Delete, Inv to Insert and
Cntrl+Left/Right to Home/End?  Perhaps even Symbol+Edit (IIRC) to Num Lock.
I suppose this calls for a SimCoupe.ini file...

Si Owen wrote:

Of course the SAM parallel port is also used for other devices, but
there'll
be an option to select the hardware you want on each port.

How about the MIDI ports?  How easy would it be to interface with the
Windows MIDI devices?  I have a program that plays E-Tracker tunes out of
Sams MIDI port.  It would be great if I could give it a whirl on WinCoupe!
(Might even force me to do some more work on it! :)

Dave Laundon.

RE: Wincoupe bug

[Dave Laundon]

 Dave Hooper wrote:

  Potentially, this could have been caused by an envelope
  controller bug which
  has now been fixed. It could also have been caused by externally-clocked
  envelopes not correctly being clocked by WinCoupe (which has now
  been fixed
  in WinCoupe).
  Latest SAASound.dll is at (and will always be at)
  http://www.geocities.com/stripwax
 
  Currently it's 2.05, give it a go.

 Yep, that seemed to fix the out of tune problem, thank's.  The menu music
 from Fred 60 still sounds a bit odd, but I can't find anything else.  I
 can't be sure, since my Sam has been mute for about a year (anyone know
 where I can get a Philips sound chip from?)

I've been going through a few Fred disks and most of the time the music
sounds perfect, but I come across a tune now and again that seems to have a
clicking or juddering sound (perhaps at 50Hz?).  The Fred 60 menu music is
one, but also the second part of Mnemodemo 2 - when the 'M' is spinning, the
music sounds fine but when it stops, the juddering is heard.  This gave me
an idea.  Could it be that when the 'M' is paused there's less work going on
= the eTracker code is being called at a different position in the frame.
At this state maybe the routine in WinCoupe that passes the sound info to
SAASound.dll is being performed part way through the eTracker code; maybe
even between an OUT to a sound chip address port and its corresponding OUT
to the data port.

Dave Laundon.

RE: Wincoupe bug

[Dave Laundon]

Dave Hooper wrote:

 Potentially, this could have been caused by an envelope
 controller bug which
 has now been fixed. It could also have been caused by externally-clocked
 envelopes not correctly being clocked by WinCoupe (which has now
 been fixed
 in WinCoupe).
 Latest SAASound.dll is at (and will always be at)
 http://www.geocities.com/stripwax

 Currently it's 2.05, give it a go.

Yep, that seemed to fix the out of tune problem, thank's.  The menu music
from Fred 60 still sounds a bit odd, but I can't find anything else.  I
can't be sure, since my Sam has been mute for about a year (anyone know
where I can get a Philips sound chip from?)

 Oh, it could also be caused by WinCoupe 'trying' to emulate a Sam at 100%
 speed but not being able to ... what machine have you got (I think Si Owen
 recommends a Pentium 200 as recommended minimum spec, but it will run on
 lower spec machines. But I don't know what the sound emulation
 will be like
 on lower spec machines...)

I have a AMD K6-2 400 running Win 98 SE, so I don't think it's that!

 I was actually thinking of emulating the sound interference you
 get when the
 disk drive is going :)
 (Seriously ! Would it be a cool idea, or just stupid?)

Mmmm, should I answer that truthfully? :-)
Anyway, the sound probably differs from machine to machine?

Dave Laundon

RE: Wincoupe bug

[Dave Laundon]

Robert Wilkinson wrote:

 Wincoupe has a wierd effect on my Win 95 desktop.
 It keeps re-arranging my icons.


 Bob Wilkinson.

While we're on the subject, I've got a couple of bugs/ideas I was going to
mention too.

First, I still can't seem to get the MOD Player to work.  Was this supposed
to have been fixed?  Or is it still being worked on, Dave?

Another sound bug, playing tunes which have envelopes enabled for saw waves,
etc (eg, a lot of Roger Hartley tunes) the enveloped channels sound out of
tune, especially at low frequencies.  I think it is the frequency of the
channel controlling the envelope frequency being heard as a tone, when it
should be silent?  I don't know, just a guess.

Now an idea for Wincoupe itself: I think it would handy if there was some
indication, perhaps on the title bar, of when the disk drives are being
accessed, so during some long pauses I can tell that it's not crashed.  Hey,
maybe you could even mimic the screen dimming as the drives are spun up! ;-)

David Laundon.

BTW, I think WinCoupe is excellent and I LOVE IT

Testing

[Dave Laundon]

Sorry, I've just re-subscribed to Sam-Users with my new email address; just
checking it's getting through ok.

David Laundon.