Software

• toki.py — A brute-force solver for Toki Tori levels, written in Python

Ultima Sheet Music

Tired of replaying your Final Fantasy Piano Collection for the billionth time? Rejoyce! I have typeset some memorable tunes from the Ultima game series for your playing pleasure. All of the sheet music below was transcribed from MIDI files found on the Internet using GNU Lilypond and is arranged for piano and/or organ (2 manuals and bass pedals). I've left out tempo specifications and used dynamic and articulation marks very sparingly, so you should refer to the original tunes when in doubt. Enjoy!

All music is Copyright © Origin Systems, Inc.

Downloads

• All tunes in PDF format (480k)
• Lilypond source files for all tunes (10k)

Tunes included:

Ultima IV - Quest Of The Avatar

• Fanfare Of Lord British
• Combat Theme

Ultima V - Warriors Of Destiny

• Dream Of Lady Nan
• Fanfare For The Virtues
• Greyson's Tale (arranged for organ, but piano players can just omit the bass voice)
• Lord Blackthorn
• Main Theme
• Stones
• Villager Tarantella

Ultima VI - The False Prophet

• Audchar Gargl Zenmúr (original arrangement)
• Audchar Gargl Zenmúr (an arrangement that is easier to play)
• Dungeon Theme
• Forest Theme

Ultima VII - The Black Gate

• Camping Theme (unless you have big hands, leave out the upper voice in bars 25-29 :-)
• Fellowship Theme
• Love Theme
• Wilderness
• The Wisps

Ultima VII Part 2 - Serpent Isle

• The Dark Path (this sounds crappy on the piano, but I wanted to include a tune from Serpent Isle…)

Original Music

I wrote lots of tunes during my C64 and early Amiga days, most of which are not suited for public consumption.

When I attended the Breakpoint 2003 party I decided to participate in the Tracked Music competition with a remix of one of my old OctaMED tunes. I didn't win. I barely made second-to-last place. Well, at least I know mine wasn't the worst entry. :-)

You can download the XM version of the tune (originally dubbed "Autumn Twilight", but renamed "Easter Twilight" for BP) here:

• Easter Twilight (596k)

You need an XM-capable player. Search for "XM players" or "MOD players" on the Internet and it should come up with something. MikMod can play the tune but seems to have problems with some of the effects, so I suggest you use a different player.

"Easter Twilight" was tracked with Michael Krause's excellent SoundTracker program.

Dance Dance Revolution

"Flip the Flop (Rock my Commodore)" is a C64 remix by Holger Lagerfeldt to which I have created some DDR steps:

• Flip the Flop (2.3M)

This songfile can be used with DDR simulations like StepMania and Dance With Intensity. It has Basic (5 feet), Trick (7 feet) and Maniac (8 feet) level steps, so there should be something in it for everyone. Thanks to Holger for giving me permission to use his remix for this stepfile!

Essays

Tab-size independent source code formatting

A short text about what I consider the proper way of using tabs and spaces in C/C++ source code.

I was always annoyed about misformatted source code due to different tab-size conventions. Then I read an article about tab-size independent formatting that solved all my problems with a simple set of rules. Sadly, this article seems to have disappeared from the Net, but here is the gist of it:

• HTML version (requires color and style sheets)
• Text version (5k)

Some editors like Emacs and Vim can do this type of formatting automatically by now.

The MOS 6567/6569 Video Controller (VIC-II) and its application in the Commodore 64

This was written as an attempt to gather all the information I had discovered about the C64 video chip during the development of Frodo.

• English text version (updated 2024-09-29)

Fan Fiction

One day I had this idea for a story and thought "This would make a nice Farscape episode".

18 months and two books on screenwriting later, I ended up with this:

• No Serviceable Parts Inside (92k)

It's a rather downbeat story, but 100% free of any J/A shippiness. And it has creatures and lots of little Japanese things. What more could you ask for? :-)

Much to my surprise, this script won second place in the 2004 Farscape Fanfic Awards:

Christian Bauer