****************************************************************************** ** HippoPlayer ** * Programmed by K-P Koljonen (Moonstone/HPD) * * - A Hippopotamus Design production 1994 - * * * * This program may be freely distributed * * as long as all files are included unaltered! * ** FREEWARE ** ****************************************************************************** General ­­­­­­­ HippoPlayer (HiP) is a(nother) moduleplayer with multiple music formats. Strange thing is that it works perfectly under Kickstart 1.2 and has about all the same features as the legendary Multiplayer (Kick2.0+). One main reason why I bothered myself by making this program was that there were no good Kick1.3 compatible players around. The other reason was that my good friend Jarno Paananen (Guru/Sahara Surfers) made a replayroutine for Scream Tracker v3.0 modules. HiP can play several music formats. The most popular Protracker is ofcourse included. The replayer is a fast one (my own). Average rasterline usage (on A500) is 3 and maximum is 6-7. The Scream Tracker v3.0 modules are played correctly, 1 to 32 channels. The replayer was made by Jarno Paananen. A very neat piece of code! Thanks pal! Other features: - Formats worth noticing: · TFMX modules, normal and the seven channel-ones (like Turrican 2 intro music). · The Player 6.0A. Samples may be packed, but not in a different file. · Oktalyzer modules. Really good quality due to the turbocharged replayer. - Many music formats. - Easy to use, nice interface. - Programmable playing order. - Memory usage about 80kb. - Loads and decompresses XPK, FImp and PowerPacker files. - Internal multitasking! - Tested and works on Kickstarts 1.2, 1.3 and 3.0. Hey you programmers, don't dump those old Kickstarts yet! A number of old Amigas still exist! ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ ­ Requirements ­ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Any Amiga with some memory and Kickstart 1.2 or higher. Reqtools.library of any version will be needed for requesters. In order to decompress XPK or PowerPacker files, you will need xpkmaster.library (with some sublibs) and powerpacker.library. For MED modules (4 channels), medplayer.library V2 or higher will be needed. These mentioned libraries are included in the package. Among them are some XPK sublibs too. You should copy the desired libraries into your LIBS: drawer. Note that only the reqtools.library is absolutely necessary. reqtools.library and powerpacker.library by Nico François. medplayer.library by Teijo Kinnunen. The program will run fine on 512kb Amigas but decompressing files may not work due to the greater use of memory. HippoPlayer can be loaded from CLI or Workbench. An own process will be created so there's no need to run it. This also means that you mustn't merge hunks in the file. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ ­ Music formats ­ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Here's a list of the music formats in HippoPlayer and what functions they support. These are mainly the ones that I had some modules from. Also the authors are listed. Stop/Continue = 1 Multiple songs = 2 Volume = 3 Tempo switch = 4 End detect = 5 Forward/backward = 6 Replayer 123456 Author -------------------------------------------------------------------- BP SoundMon x----- Brian Postma Fred xx---- JC & Frederic Hahn Future Composer v1.0-v1.4 x-x--- SuperSero (of the Superions) JamCracker x----- M. Gemmel MED 4ch x----- Teijo Kinnunen Music Assembler x-x--- Oscar Giesen & Marco Swagerman Oktalyzer 8ch --x--- Armin Sander Protracker x-xxxx K-P Koljonen Scream Tracker v3.0 1-32ch --x-x- Jarno Paananen SIDMon v1.0 x----- Reiner van Vliet TFMX xxx--- Chris Hülsbeck TFMX 7ch xx---- Chris Hülsbeck The Player v6.0A x-xxx- Jarno Paananen Note that not all of the functions work on all replayers. Eg you can't stop Oktalyzer when you've started it. Well you can, but only by ejecting, so you can't continue. Mainly all modules will be loaded in CHIP RAM. Oktalyzer- and ScreamTracker modules and TFMX songdata will be loaded in FAST RAM if possible. If files are compressed, HiP can't check the format and all files 'll be loaded in CHIP. There's one exception: HiP will look for ".S3M" and "S3M." in the filename. If found, the module will be loaded in FAST if possible. TFMX ---- A TFMX module consists of two files. They must be named 'mdat.' and 'smpl.'. To play, select 'mdat.'. HippoPlayer will then try to load the 'smpl.' file. Since I haven't figured out the difference between 4 and 7 channel TFMX modules, there's a switch in the Prefs window for selecting 4 or 7 channel TFMX replayer. It's not recommended to use 7 channel replayer for 4 channel modules because it might cause a Guru (Hi!) or something. The mixing rate of TFMX 7 channel replayer can be changed. The bigger value, the better quality and bigger CPU load. Scream Tracker v3.0 ------------------- This replayer (by Guru/S2) can play S3Ms with 1-32 channels. Mixing rate can be changed. Again, the bigger value, the better quality and bigger CPU load. The replayer is able to jump backwards in the song while playing if the processor can't manage to do all things needed. If you hear that happening, you should decrease the mixing rate. The replayer will need 128kb of CHIP and 54kb of PUBLIC memory for buffers. Using the system friendly mode on A500 will probably more or less jam the machine, therefore you should use the killer mode for the best quality. ­­­­­­­­­­­ ­ Gadgets ­ ­­­­­­­­­­­ New Clear modulelist, select new modules and play the first one. Play Load and/or play the selected module. If nothing selected, pop up the filerequester. Cont Continue playing after stop. Stop Stop playing. Eject Stop playing and free the current module. ? Display some bull. Prev Load and play previous module. Next Load and play next module. PS Play previous song. NS Play next song. Add Add modules to the end of the list, pop up the filerequester. Del Delete a selected module from the list. Clr Clear the list. < Backward, jump to previous pattern. > Forward, jump to next pattern. Vol Volume controller. The leftmost propgadget Scroll modulelist. ­­­­­­­­­­­ ­­­ Prefs ­­­ ­­­­­­­­­­­ Mode (how to play modules) ---- Repeat Play the modulelist over and over. Through Play the list once stop. Repeat module Play one module over and over. Module Play one module once and stop. Random Play modules in random order. This switch affects the replayers where the end of the song can be detected from. Show (titlebar information) ---- Time Show playing time. Songposition/length Protracker only. Songnumber Multisong modules only. Protracker tempo command ------------------------ Enable or disable Protracker tempo command. This affects Protracker and the Player replayers. Use on old modules that use speeds higher than $1F. TFMX channels ------------- See 'music formats'. (Mixing) rates -------------- With these you can control the mixing rates of Scream Tracker v3.0 and TFMX 7ch. The ScreamTracker unit is kHz and the TFMX unit is unknown. See 'Music formats'. ST3 (ScreamTracker) settings ---------------------------- 1st box ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ System Allow multitasking when playing. Killer Disable system and swallow all CPU to get better quality. Stop playing with the left mousebutton. The blue flickering represents the free CPU time. 2nd box (Surround, Stereo, Mono) ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Try them out. 3rd box (Value 0-4) ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ This is the volumeboost for ScreamTracker. It makes the sound clearer and louder with 8 or more channels. Module directory ---------------- Here you can enter your module directory. Save, Use, Cancel ----------------- I guess you can guess these... The prefs-file will be saved in S: directory. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ ­ The big box ­ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Here you can see the modulelist. You can select a module by pressing the left mousebutton on it. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ ­ Right mousebutton ­ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Pressing the right mousebutton will shrink the window so that only the title will be shown. Press again on the activated window to expand. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ ­ I lost the window! ­ ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ What? Ok, just load the program again. If there already was one HippoPlayer running, it's window will be popped to front and expanded. ­­­­­­­­­­­ ­ History ­ ­­­­­­­­­­­ v1.00 I couldn't doublecheck the bug I suspected because a friend of mine wanted to upload the program everywhere. This bug causes memory to be fragmented when loading XPK files. v1.01 No major bugs left.. ­­­­­­­­ ­ Blah ­ ­­­­­­­­ The program was made by using the Asm-One v1.06. Pure assembler 100%+++... My best regards go to Jarno Paananen! Thanks for the PS3M & P60A! Delay or die... I would appreciate if someone would send me some of these musicprograms: BPSoundMon, Fred, Jamcracker, Music Assembler, Oktalyzer v1.56, SIDMon v2.0 or TFMX, or any stuff concerning them (if they're freely distributable ß-). If anyone possesses any kind of music by Chris Hülsbeck, especially the album "Shades", or wants to swap modules (I've over 100Mb) or real music (hardrock, heavy, trash, death), contact me! Also normal stuff like bugs, comments & suggestions could be sent to: Kari-Pekka Koljonen Torikatu 31 40900 Säynätsalo Finland