=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- APPLE II MUSIC & SOUND FORUM CONFERENCE LOG December 4, 1991 10 PM ET Topic: SoftDisk GS and Minstrel Forum Leader: Joyce Madden (AFL JoyceM), Forum Assistant: Gene Koh (AFA Gene) Forum Consultants: Greg Dib (ELECTMUSIC), Ed Rosenblatt (AFC Eddie), Lindsay Hough (LindsayGS) Copyright (c) 1991 America Online All Rights Reserved =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- AFA Gene Welcome to the Apple Music and Sound Forum Conference. Tonight our topic is SOFTDISK G-S and our special guest tonight is Bryan Pietrzak, 16-bit Programmer for Softdisk G-S. He's the one that does all the dirty work that makes the SDGS package so user-friendly. Welcome Bryan! Of course, the main point of interest is the release on SDGS 26 of MINSTREL, a desk accessory that plays back SoundSmith and MIDI Synth songfiles from within any desktop application. This is the natural successor to the old Softdisk Jukebox, which appeared during the first year and a half of SDGS's life. Beginning with issue 26, Softdisk will be offering MIDISynth songfiles for use with this new NDA. Heroclides, Minstrel will play SoundSmith and Apple's new SynthLAB (MIDI Synth) formats. Any comments about Minstrel or about issue 26 in general Bryan? GA whenever you want :) Softdisk Thanks! AFA Parik welcome bryan. bryan's a programming stud. :) Heroclides Will Minstrel play all song files...MCS etc.? Softdisk Ok, yes, I'd like to say a few things... Minstrel v1.2 (which was published on 26) was originally written by Chris Mckinsey who has some VERY nice sound routines. v1.2 only supports MIDI Synth and SoundSmith songs at this time. v2.0 is already under development and will have many new features. Including more music formats, and more options. AFC Eddie Great! Softdisk v2.0 will probably be published in the next 6-8 months, after System 6.0 hits the streets. Heroclides Any target date...or is it too early? Softdisk We are working on a new shell for SDGS that has built-in sound support - KLIPSCH That would be nice....Too!!! Softdisk you can have song playing in the background all the time, and more. For you programmers, it's based on requests (a new 6.0 feature) Siona What kind of more? KLIPSCH good AFA Parik cowabunga AFA Gene What other music file formats are planned for support under v2.0 of Minstrel? Softdisk Siona, as an example, you can configure 2.0 to automatically play a song without ever having to open it. You can also play songs even when the NDA is closed (and the songs may even continue playing between applications) You'll be able to load multiple songs at once...and more. YSM Jim (you mean _ANOTHER_ interrupt look-alike???) Katherine2 Nice :) AFC Eddie WOW! Softdisk Gene, probably MS or MCS (whichever Jukebox supported, maybe both) YSM Jim Bryan: I'd like to see it use cacheing with the songs... hate it re-loading every time. Oh, and set the prefix back. Don't just change it. Siona I'm looking forward to that. AFA Parik NoiseTracker would be very cool. YSM Jim NoiseTracer would be very hard. AFA Gene That sure would be some feat to get NT songs to play in the background! ELECTMUSIC Any chance of getting it to record as well as playback ? Softdisk Jim: yes, the prefix will be saved in 2.0, caching? I dunno, that's a lot of overhead YSM Jim Not _Really_ .. NT songs would kinda slow the system down _SO_ much... AFA Parik this is Bryan we're talking about. He'll overcome tech difficulties. :) Softdisk ElectMusic: No, Minstrel will most likely never record songs. YSM Jim Well, I mean that _IF_ it's still intact, re-load it. If not, don't. Kinda like the "Restartable" flag in _QuitGS.. Softdisk I haven't even seen NoiseTracker, so I definitely can't play 'em yet :) Jim: Yes, but data files are handled like executable files - there's no zombie state. AFA Gene Now, just a question to throw out at y'all -- what styles of music would y'all like to see on future issues of SDGS? Dr Teeth Ya gotta see NoiseTracker (its here in the file section) It's biggest attraction is that it breaks the 64k DOC ram barrier and converts Amiga Mods. AFA Parik classical music, hip-hop how about a demo of Ministrel that only plays 1 track? Katherine2 a mix of everything would be nice KLIPSCH I'd LOVE to "beta test" it .... Softdisk Is anyone curious as to upcoming SDGS stuff? Doomsday Metal, new age, folk. Softdisk (Also, please bear with me, I'm not very familar with this software... Heroclides sure am! Dr Teeth Sure why not?????? YSM Jim Gene: I like the StudioCreations, while they were still out. Softdisk if I miss something, please ask me again!) Siona I'm curious about InstantDA. And I really like Clipboard Plus. AFA Parik the IIgs has enough euro-music. AFA Gene Okay, let's now give people an opportunity to ask Bryan questions about anything related to SDGS. Softdisk Ok, let me handle Siona's questions...she's asked a couple already Siona: what about InstantDA? Siona Why couldn't I get the beta to work? was it only me or was there a problem? Softdisk Ah, most likely you had some kind of icon conflict, (yes, you were the only one :) I detailed in the 27 release what problems might occur. YSM Jim InstantDA? Softdisk InstantDA is a small (2K) file that sits in a system folder. You can then double click on a DA (NDA or CDA) and it will be installed for you. Very...useful for those without hard drives. YSM Jim Ah.. And when will we see this wonder? AFA Parik neat Softdisk InstantDA was published on SDGS 27 (should be getting it RSN) AFA Gene Bryan, what neat things are in store for SDGS subscribers in the months ahead? Softdisk Siona, you had problems with Minstrel? AFA Gene InstantDA sounds good and i hear there's a label program in development. Siona I don't think I had that tool 35 in the tool folder. I'll try it again later. YSM Jim Me too. I had a problem with Minstrel... Softdisk Siona: you should get an error dialog saying blah de blah, install Tool 035 :) AFC Eddie Minstrel runs great for me. Heroclides Minstrel runs just fine for me Softdisk In the works: Label It, allows graphics and text to be mixed to create 6 different label sizes. SmartSpell, a spell checker NDA that works great with WorkWorks Pro, The Analyst, tells you what's your system is made up of. YSM Jim Run it: Yes.. Listen: Some problems... Heroclides standard labels? Siona Disk labels? AFC Eddie Glad I just renewed my subscription! Softdisk label sizes: 3x1,4x1,5x1,4x2,4x3 and 3x3 AFC Eddie This is so exciting: Real support for the Apple II GS! Dr Teeth I never had a subscription :( Siona So get one! Softdisk We've also got a really neat 3-D tic tac toe going out (4x4x4)... YSM Jim Bryan: How 'cum I can't listen to some SynthLAB songs? It's kinda screwy... AFA Gene AFA Parik will you be doing the synthlab music, gene? Heroclides subscriptions...1-800-831-2694 AFC Eddie Will Smartspell come with it? AFA Gene Yep, Parik. Softdisk The guys that brought you AmoebaMan are finishing up another great arcade type game (and it evens involves a hot topic: garbage :) Siona I always wondered if all those letters to Prof Know-It- All were real. Softdisk Jim: You shouldn't have any problems whatsover?!? YSM Jim I get problems with custom .wbnk files...Like it doesn't load the wbank and it starts playing with the wrong sounds... AFA Gene Interesting question, Siona! Softdisk Siona: yep, every one! Gene is doing some of our songs, and we have a couple other songwriters working on some *original* stuff (remember Softdisk is ALL ORIGINAL software, no freeware, public domain or shareware stuff!) YSM Jim Oh, WHERE's THE THIRD SONG? It said "3" .. I _GOT_ "2". Heroclides I got 2 also AFA Gene The third song didn't fit on the disk! :( It will appear in issue 28 or 29 I believe. YSM Jim (At least I'm not dreaming..) Softdisk Jim: send me the offending files and I'll take a look, if something is wrong then I'll be sure that 2.0 fixes it. Heroclides wtg Gene! Softdisk Oh yeah, there's an all new PRINT DIR coming out, that will allow you to select a folder (or disk) icon in Finder and print its contents, some really great stuff is coming up, not to mention our shell. Heroclides Battle Hymm of the Republic? AFC Eddie That all sounds terrific, Bryan! Softdisk Jim: where did it say 3? We only had room for 2 on 26, something like 2K free AFC Eddie I also appreciate some of the fonts. AFA Parik a cda version of ministrel would be neat, so we can listen to songs while on AO and GEnie. :) Softdisk The third song, Etude, will most likely be on 29, maybe 30. Starting with 26 we have been trying to bring you more applications and less "stuff" (clip art, fonts, etc) Heroclides Don't lose Spencer's Pages....they are great. YSM Jim I'm looking for the 3.. hang on. Softdisk Parik: with 2.0, that may be a possibility, but the interface will still be an NDA, I don't know about being online (interrupts?!?) Softdisk Spencer will be with us for a long time - his stuff is great. AFA Parik trust me, it works being online. AFC Eddie Trust him! Softdisk (btw, for those of you who complained, the new print dir is a whole new program, and is 1,673,361 times better :) Heroclides How come they took the coming attractions off the disk Softdisk Parik: then I'll implement it :) Dr Teeth Speaking of which, Parik, When is the next version of BGSound??????? Softdisk (easy to say huh?) AFA Parik (I quit working on the IIgs, teethster) AFA Parik but dya jim has a program like it coming out i think Softdisk Heroclides: that's a sore spot with me. Our IBM product missed a couple Dr Teeth AGGGGGGGHHHH! Another bites the dust.... Softdisk programs that were billed as coming attractions, so company policy became that we don't do them anymore. I think we should though :) Heroclides anticipation is lost without it Softdisk Yep...I agree totally. I have a question for YOU guys: YSM Jim Ah..here it is.. 3 songs. Softdisk How do you feel about publishing new versions of things (eg Minstrel 2.0) As a rule, we have never done that before. Heroclides you could leave some of the garbage out of the bottom...like report card...because you provided it in the mailing Dr Teeth Updates are the spice of Computing Life........ Softdisk Subscriber's sometimes feel cheated, thinking we just threw the same basic progtam on an issue. AFA Parik sounds like a necessity to me. AFC Eddie I think it's a good idea, when something gets significantly improved. Dr Teeth Excuse me. GREAT updates are the........ Heroclides I like the updates...especially for a good program...and don't feel cheated Softdisk Well, we've been real lucky (or good ;-). There have been very few problems with the material on SDGS. Siona If it's a valid upgrade (like WordWorks Pro) I don't see any problem with that. ELECTMUSIC SD... curious as to your thoughts on supporting the GS from the CDRom arena? Softdisk (I'm buffering this and will show it to the publisher in our weekly meeting :) ElectMusic: How do you mean? Software to access it, as a medium to distribute? AFA Parik does anyone in this room have a cd-rom on their IIgs? (nuff said) Softdisk I do :) Dr Teeth I don't even have a CD rom....or a CD ELECTMUSIC Well... no one will have a CDRom player unless there is CDROM software :) Panda4 If I had the $$$ Parik ;) Heroclides I do AFA Parik but no one will write cdrom software without people with cdrom players! 8-) ELECTMUSIC The concept of softdisk taken to the a much greater level Panda4 That crazy circle again:/ Softdisk ElectMusic: I don't think we'll ever go to CD-ROM as a distribution medium. With our (tentative) new shell, SDGS will most likely be 2 800K disks, but we can't even consider using a single 1.44 MB disk because not enough people have the hardware. 90% of our subscribers are NOT power users. ELECTMUSIC Except... CDRom players are going to become cheaper... making it a easier possibility Softdisk (many have only a single 3.5" drive!) ELECTMUSIC (This is true) Heroclides Subscribe for 3 years now....save the cost...2 disks..super A 2 fer sale....hmmmm Softdisk Personally, I am interested in CD-ROMs, and you may see something in the future (12-18 months) for accessing data on CD-ROMs. AFA Gene Is SD considering CD-ROM as a possible medium on other platforms? Softdisk Don't hold me to the new shell and 2 disk thing. We are trying very hard to get this implemented, but I don't call the shots on the business side of things. ELECTMUSIC In would be curious as to a sampling of Softdisk users who would upgrade to this technology if you published the disks. JohnyBGood I think Softdisk should buy out 'Apple GS ' and then we could all develop more Heroclides SoftDisk CD ROM....a new title...hmmmm Katherine2 Bryan, has any thought been given to putting a demo disk of SDGS here online for users to sample? Softdisk Buy out the IIgs rights? We need a few dollars for that...:) It's my understanding that there is a demo available free from Quality Computers, I'm not sure which issue though. Siona I'm planning on demoing SDGS for my users group. A demo disk would be nice for our disk library. Heroclides Ahhh you guys in Louisana got all the cash.....:) ELECTMUSIC (CDRom technology is really beginning to blossom in the other computer platforms) AFA Gene I believe it's an early issue, with the first published version of the desktop. Might be a good idea to press a new demo with the new desktop. Softdisk Siona, send me e-mail with the particulars, and Lee will help you out Siona Great! Softdisk Lee Golden is the Softdisk G-S Managing Editor and does a FANTASTIC job JohnyBGood SD : Does the new NDA have any Editor functions ? AFA Parik (the IIgs has enough trouble with 3.5" blossomings, greg. :-) Softdisk Gene: I'll talk to Lee about it tommorrow -good idea. Softdisk JohnyBGood: editor? as in music editing? No, it's just playback ELECTMUSIC Curious as to how many online users own regular CD players for music? AFA Gene Johny: Minstrel was designed to continue the "Jukebox" metaphor. Its style is very much like a CD player. AFA Parik i do ELECTMUSIC <--- I own 2 Softdisk ElectMusic: Even our IBM product (which has more subscribers than all other products put together) can't consider moving to CD-ROM right now. Siona I wouldn't mind seeing an occasional collection on icons on SDGS. (Along the lines of fonts and clipart) AFC Eddie I own 3 Softdisk The laws of supply and demand apply here Katherine2 Bryan, would we ever see any NBA written for HyperStudio 3 on SDGS? JohnyBGood IC how about a link between it and maybe another such as the SS editor or just a speed up or slow down play rate for example . Softdisk Siona: good idea! Being an "online" person, I forget that the average person is using dull black and white Finder icons. Heroclides make the supply and create the demand...then fill it....:) ELECTMUSIC (Understood SD) Softdisk Katherine: BINGO!!! Our new shell (if there is one :-) will be based on HyperStudio 3.0, so NBAs and stacks are possible then. Heroclides Your icons for Minstrel were boring.....I should send you mine...:) ELECTMUSIC CDRoms play regular CD's right? Katherine2 Great :) Softdisk Heroclides, please do! Siona Why not upload it to the icons library here? <-- has taken a recent interest in icons. Softdisk Siona, because then we won't publish it :) AFA Gene Are there any other questions or comments for Bryan Pietrzak, 16-bit programmer for Softdisk G-S? ELECTMUSIC Make your next CD player... a CDRom player (SCSI... that is) AFC Eddie Yes, thanks! AFA Parik yah, and only pay $400-600 greg (no thanks). Softdisk Thanks for having me tonight folks! I hope you'll all be subscribing now! ELECTMUSIC Try $299 and dropping. Softdisk (or renewing ;-) Heroclides Keep up the good work Bryan....I for one really enjoy SoftDiskGS AFA Gene Well then, the hour is approaching, so let's wrap up tonight's conference. AFA Parik the NEC, greg? AFC Eddie This was really informative. AFA Gene Thanks for joining us Bryan, and we look forward to seeing more of your programming work in the upcoming issues of SDGS. JohnyBGood SD list the 800 once More . Softdisk 1-800-831-2694 ELECTMUSIC Saw it a a computer show... $299 Not sure Parik AFA Parik sounds like it woulnd't work on the IIgs, greg (needs drivers!!) ELECTMUSIC SCSI... AFA Gene Thanks all for coming, and see y'all next week! Softdisk SCSI doesn't mean it works... AFA Parik that doesn't mean it'll work, greg. AFA Parik :) AFC Eddie Alright you guys, just buy each other one for the holidays! Softdisk A company called Trantor has (had? :( ) some very powerful SCSI drivers in development for the IIgs, never heard what happened though. ELECTMUSIC Of course it won't work ... there isn't any software for it anyway :) AFA Parik the drivers were written by Matt Gulack I think (Apple engineer) Softdisk Yep (that's why their powerful, Matt Gulick is a SCSI dude) ELECTMUSIC But it is interesting to consider Softdisk (his business card says, "Matt Gulick, an all around scuzzy guy) AFA Parik i haven't seen much impressive cd-rom stuff (we have one at work hooked to a novell network, Mac & PC accessible). Ziff-davis mags, encyclopedia, etc. They are also annoyingly slow (fastest is 350ms or so... hd = 19ms!!) ELECTMUSIC I would think it would be a nice add on for Hypermedia programs JohnyBGood Oh , By the way Eddie ... my Class reunion loved alot of your music AFC Eddie Thanks, Johny! Softdisk Me too Parik, I really just use CDs for the developer CDs from Apple JohnyBGood put much if it to aslide show :) AFC Eddie Great! ELECTMUSIC Gotta go... thanks for a very insightful chat.. SDisk AFC Eddie --------------------------LOG OFF--------------------------