         File: SIDPlayerV3_0.tar.gz
       Author: cbauer@iphcip1.physik.uni-mainz.de (Christian Bauer)
      Release: 3.0 (21.May 1998)
Compatibility: R3 PPC/x86
     Location: contrib/audio
  Description: SID tune replayer
        Notes:

                                 SIDPlayer
                                Version 3.0

                            A SID tune replayer
                                 for BeOS

                 (C) Copyright 1996-1998 Christian Bauer
                     Stereo support by Marco Nelissen
                           Freely distributable


What is SIDPlayer?
------------------

SIDPlayer is a replayer program for C64 music ("SID tunes"), like PlaySID
on the Amiga or SIDPLAY for Unix. You can think of it as being a stripped-
down C64 emulator that only emulates the CPU and the sound chip of the
C64. SIDPlayer can replay SID tunes in the "PSID" file format, but it
cannot run any C64 programs.


Why would I want to listen to C64 music?
----------------------------------------

The C64 had the most advanced sound capabilities of all home computers in
the early 80's. While other computers of that time were only able to make
"beep", the C64 had a complete 3-voice analog synthesizer on its MOS 6581
sound chip (called "SID" - "Sound Interface Device"). Even some more modern
computers (as the Atari ST or the first Macs) had worse sound.

The SID chip features three oscillators with selectable waveform, ADSR
envelope generators, programmable resonance filters and special effects
like ring modulation. With the aid of the CPU, it can also replay 4-bit
sampled sounds. SIDPlayer emulates all features of the SID chip, including
the filters.

There were (and are still) many composers programming excellent music for
the C64 and thousands of tunes have been converted for use with SID tune
replayers on nearly every existing computer platform. One big advantage of
SID tunes is that they take very little hard disk space: most are only 4-8K
in size.


Supported file formats
----------------------

The only SID tune file format supported by SIDPlayer is single-file PSID
files (these have the signature "PSID" in the first 4 bytes).


Using SIDPlayer
---------------

SIDPlayer can be started from the Tracker or from the Shell. If you give
the name of a PSID file as an argument from the Shell or drag a PSID file
onto the SIDPlayer icon from the Tracker, that file is loaded and played.

The SIDPlayer window some information about the currently loaded PSID file
and has the usual tapedeck-like controls for pausing, restarting and
stopping the replay and for selecting the next or previous song contained
in the PSID file. The '+' and '-' buttons make the music play faster or
slower. The number of the song currently playing and the total number of
songs in the loaded PSID file are displayed to the right of the tapedeck
buttons. The checkbox labeled "Filters" is used to turn the emulation of
the SID filters on or off.

The eight slider gadgets in the right part of the window control the
stereo panning and volume of each of the four voices (3 sythesized
voices, 1 sampled voice).

Some functions of SIDPlayer can also be controlled with the keyboard:
  P          : Play/pause
  S          : Stop
  N          : Next song
  Esc        : Stop
  Left arrow : Previous song
  Right arrow: Next song
  Up arrow   : Faster
  Down arrow : Slower

To load another PSID file, drag it into the SIDPlayer window. To quit
SIDPlayer, close the window or select the Quit menu item.


Where do I get PSID files
-------------------------

The the two largest collections of SID tunes are "NemeSIDs"
(ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/sidmusic) and "High Voltage"
(http://www.dhp.com/~shark/c64music). These have been used for
testing during the development of SIDPlayer and they should all work.

Twelve demonstration SID tunes are included with SIDPlayer in the "PSID"
folder.


History
-------

V1.0 - First release
V2.0 - SID filter emulation, better envelope generation
V2.1 - Implemented notch filter, 60Hz replay now works, added faster/
       slower buttons, compiled for BeOS DR8
V2.2 - Improved the 6510, triangle waveform is now 12 bits, output
       clipping, stereo output, corrected SID sustain behaviour,
       reading from a write-only SID register returns the last byte
       written to the SID, combined waveforms sampled from a 6581R4
V2.3 - Corrected BRK, DCP, ARR and LAS instructions, volume levels up
       to 200% possible, compiled for BeOS DR9
V2.4 - Shows name/author/copyright in ISO-Latin1
V2.5 - Converted panning/volume sliders to BSlider
V3.0 - Unified PPC/x86 release


Copyright and distribution
--------------------------

The program "SIDPlayer", this manual and the source code may be freely
distributed as long as they remain unchanged and all files are included.

The rights on the source code remain at the author. It may not - not even
in parts - used for commercial purposes without explicit written permission
by the author. Permission to use it for non-commercial purposes is hereby
granted als long as my copyright notice remains in the program. You are not
allowed to use the source to create and distribute a modified version of
SIDPlayer.


Christian Bauer
<cbauer@iphcip1.physik.uni-mainz.de>
