Issue 36: Oct 2003
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | Digiscoping Or How I Saved $68,000
- | JagFest UK 2003 Aftershock
- | Mod Shop Horrors
- | Broadband ST
- | Atari Goes Metal: 2
- | ABBUC Highscore Chat
- | Activision's "Forgotten" Years
- | Keep That Atari!
- | MiNT And I
- | Atari Logo Evolution Continued
- | Atari In Argentina
Reviews
- | Painter
- | Laser Squad
M@ilbox
| M@ilbox No such thing as a dumb question... I have an Atari 1040ST that I really like and I am interested in using it as a musical platform for both editing of scores and creation of new music. I am puzzled by the MIDI portion of the machine though, and perhaps that is why this may be a stupid question: Is there a way or a piece of software which allows for playing of MIDI tracks/sequences/compositions on the internal speaker? For a followup, if the answer to that is no, what would be a decent piece of software for composing original music using differently voiced instruments which DOES permit output through the internal speaker??? I have a basic 3 part scoring application now but am not overly impressed with the beeps which it emits, and I have heard much better effects out of said speaker. Is my goal hopeless here? Steve Souther, USA Tim Conrardy replies Yes, there are several applications. One is Dr T's Tiger Cub. It allows you to play samples using the internal sound on the ST. As a matter of fact, the program actually comes with the samples! The program is an excellent sequencer with lots of editing capability. KCS' little brother, so to speak. Another is MUSIC*MICRO By Ron Recker. Apparently it started as a tracker editing program and then MIDI was added to it, thus expanding it into a hybrid tracker/MIDI application. Within the program is also an editor for the ST sound chip with an excellent graphic interface. Ron has also provided a HTML manual created from the original documentation as well as utilities to use with the program. Both of these are avialble on the software page at TAMW (http://tamw.atari-users.net) under sequencers. Shiuming Lai replies The ST computers don't have internal speakers, what you are referring to is the in-built sound generation capabilities, which inevitably emanate from a television or monitor speaker in most cases. Certainly there are many programs available for generating sound straight from the box, the most popular (and best sounding) ones being based on sampled sound, the various so-called tracker mod formats. These are generally not compatible with MIDI. There are ways of making the ST play MIDI song data without using real outboard MIDI sound modules, the most well-known being EPSS from Unit 17 of Sweden, for STE and TT (using their 8-bit stereo DMA sound) but ultimately, none of these methods can create the sophistication and resolution of sound available from a real dedicated sound module. That's the whole idea of MIDI, taking the burden of sound synthesis away from the host system, leaving it to do less strenuous tasks such as sequencing. If you still really want to use an Atari computer as a sound source (and why not, it's cool), then beg, steal or borrow a Falcon030, buy a copy of ACE MIDI from http://nb.atari.org and slave it to your ST via MIDI, then enjoy the lush analogue style sounds ACE can produce. Didot Pro - no shortcuts I found your article about making Calamus fonts with Didot Pro. Now that it seems to be that we are the last two Didot users - perhaps you can help me: When starting Didot Pro (orig. Version 4.141) an errorscreen appears: "DIDOT.HLP not found or defected-shortcuts not possible", everything else is working fine. I used Didot on my Falcon for a long time (incl. shortcuts), but after I made a big HD-crash i had to install my software again and now this error occures. There is really no DIDOT.HLP file in the DIDOT.CFG folder, but there are "DEUTSCH.HLP;ENGLISH.HLP;FRENCH.HLP and ITALIANO.HLP". Renaming any of them to "DIDOT.HLP" don't change anything, pressing ALT+CTRL+SHIFT L for setting new shortcut don't work and I can't find any solutions in the manual. Please tell me if I have to set any special start-parameters or please mail the missing "DIDOT.HLP" file (if you can find it). I hope you can help. Lars Schmidbauer, Germany Christoph Brincken replies This is the Didot help file from version 3.123 Pro. [Sent by e-mail] Bargain Ataris Hi where is this shop that has ST for sale at £25 Martin Stevens Shiuming Lai replies What, and let you clear out my secret supply?! Seriously, that's about the going rate for used STs at any junk emporium (I'm talking about unchecked machines piled together like scrap here), you could probably spend that much just travelling to a specific shop. My local music store doesn't discriminate between Atari models, you buy the stuff as seen, so it pays to know what you're looking at. I expect Thomas Wellicome will be even more tight-lipped about where he bought a full working TT030 for £23, the jammy sod... The documentation for Atari games I had both an Atari 800 and an Atari St during the 80's. I now have a couple of atari emulators running under Win XP pro, and have even found copies of some of my favorite games from those years. But guess what! I don't remember the instructions for the games, and the downloaded software does not come with the software. I gave away my atari materials long ago. Article idea. Is there an archive for the old game manuals someplace? Assuming that scanning the old manuals for distribution on-line would be somewhat expensive, for a reasonable price, I suspect there is a market for the material on an on-line distribution basis. Any ideas about where one would go to find such a treasure trove? Bob Matthew Preston replies You're in luck as most of it has already been done. Take a look at Atariage.com, they have manuals for everything from the Atari 2600 to Jaguar in HTML format to read in your web browser. Shiuming Lai replies I think the best and most enjoyable games are those which don't need instructions! However, you've touched on a valid issue, one that along with the games themselves is very much in a grey area. Manuals that accompany games are also subject to copyright law, the problem is, like the games, most of the original publishers (remember, we're talking of the '80s, a time when there was a huge proliferation of small, independent publishers) have long since disappeared, and getting permission to reproduce any portion of the software packages is practically impossible. I've heard of at least one company though, which has painstakingly traced the original authors and publishers of selected Atari 8-bit computer games, for permission to release them on cartridge format compilations. It's good to see the hard work was successful. TXG replies Look at AtariAge.com, there are manuals. MyAtari is better used for reviews of games but not a database for manuals. ST games under emulation I hv a 1040ST w/o hard drive and the floppies are mostly worn out by now I found some Windows Emulators that can play some of the games in my collections I wish to know which emulator is the better one. can u advise? Mr. K. T. Yeo, Malaysia Shiuming Lai replies The "best" emulator for a given task, like just about any product, is the one that works for you. STeem and SainT are the two most popular ones at the moment, they are also still actively developed and I think the majority of users use them for running games. As they are both also free, it does no harm to have both installed on the same system. One may be more compatible on some software than the other and vice-versa. Keep reading MyAtari magazine because we'll be reporting on emulation from time to time, we have a resident expert in this area, Matthew Preston.
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