Re: The next holy grail of the A2 software world

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

Alex Lee <alelee@mac.com> wrote:

>On 2007-08-15 17:30:38 +1000, Michael Kent 
><michael@syndicomm.remove.this.com> said:
>
>> PZ <skierpaul@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> There's no reason anyone should be hoarding these anymore.  These need
>>> to appear on an FTP site somewhere:
>> 
>>> 1) 8 Track MOD player for the GS - I saw one at KFest in a dorm room
>>> about 11 years ago.  Not sure if it was an unreleased version of
>>> MODZap or other another player, but someone has one.
>> 
>> Cool!  But are there many 8-track MODs out there?  I thought the Amiga
>> was limited to four voices.
>
>The OctaMED player/format for the Amiga supported 8 tracks. How that 
>worked, given the Amiga's inherent limitation of 4 track playback, 
>isn't understood by me, but again, that's why computers of the 80s were 
>so much fun - you could do things that weren't considered possible.

    Probably the same way programmers were able to produce 4 voice
music using the 1-bit internal speaker on the Apple II, or in the early
PC days when you could play +4 voice MODs using the internal 
speaker on a stock 386. :)

    As for playing them on the IIgs, there was BeatBox from Alvin Tan 
and Brian Ballweber. Although in an unfinished state, it did work quite 
well and supported a few 8 track MOD formats (e.g. MED, OctaMED, 
Protracker, FastTracker) on a stock Apple IIgs. It was released 
publicly 12 years back, should be out there. I still have it here.

    Unreleased players...I have shockWave (version 0.05b1) from
Ian Schmidt and Richard Wifall--the guys from the old GS<>IRC
group. Like BeatBox it supported 8 track MODs and MEDs, but
had the unique distinction of S3M "support" as well. It was *very*
crash prone and just made a bunch of unrecognizable noise trying 
to playback S3M's though. Obviously it was far from finished, and
more an interesting curiosity than a functional piece of software.

>> I'd be happy with an NDA MOD player that let me queue up a bunch of
>> songs in a row.  Sonobox let's you play only one song at a time, re-
>> peating it over and over until you select a new one.
>
>Someone asked about which background MOD player there was. Another one 
>was the shell driven one...but I can't remember its name! Aaargh! It 
>was by Brian Bening. ShellPlay? Ian Brumby supported it in his Instant 
>Access Finder alternative for playback of MODs. It allowed music 
>playback while still using Instant Access and launching other apps.

    Yep, it was shellPlay. It and BeatBox offered the best sound quality,
accuracy and supported effects, although as the name implied it only 
ran in a CLI shell based environment, like Orca or GNO/ME. Ninjaforce
released an NDA called "Deskplay" which gave shellPlay a GUI
interface, runnable from any GS/OS application and still allowed the
same background playback. That was what I used back in the day.
I think I used it with DOCVu CDA to get a visual show too.

Here it is, still downloadable from the NFC site:
http://www.ninjaforce.com/downloads/Deskplay.shk

>>> 2) AppleWorks GS v2.0 - self explanatory.  It exists, 99% complete.
>> 
>> That also would be way cool to see.  I only heard of its existance at
>> this year's KFest.  I don't know how I missed it back in the day unless
>> someone was keeping it very under-wraps.
>
>I think if AppleWorkgs GS v2.0 was 99% complete, it would have been 
>released into the wild back in the early 90s. Gareth Jones account is 
>probably the most accurate: 
>http://modena.intergate.ca/personal/gslj/awgs.html

    I have to agree. Personally I'm very doubtful it was anywhere near
complete, or even in a runnable state given Bill's track record with 
claims of how far software was complete. AppleWorks GS 2.0, for the 
most part, doesn't exist.

    Speaking of lost software, there were a few titles I'm still looking for
that have been *confirmed* to exist. Namely the unfinished copy of
Sword of Sodan, and Mike Searl's Gameboy emulator, QuickTime
video player and Photo CD viewer for the Second Sight. The latter
three were actually shown at KFest one year.

    I'm also curious if the rumours were true about unreleased Taito
games such as Renegade, Bubble Bobble and Operation Wolf.
At this point in time, I'm rather doubtful.

    Ninjaforce's KABOOM certainly does exist too (I have it on my
hardisk!), and in a playable state, but no sound/music...yet. Okay, 
it's been 12 years but I'm still hopefully they'll one day finish it. :)

Mitchell Spector