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SIDPlayer |
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A SID tune replayer |
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Copyright (C) 1996-2001 Christian Bauer |
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License |
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------- |
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SIDPlayer is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. |
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See the file "COPYING" that is included in the distribution for details. |
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What is SIDPlayer? |
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------------------ |
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SIDPlayer is a replayer program for C64 music ("SID tunes"), like PlaySID on |
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the Amiga or SIDPLAY for Unix. You can think of it as being a stripped-down |
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C64 emulator that only emulates the CPU and the sound chip of the C64. |
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SIDPlayer can replay SID tunes in the "PSID" file format, but it cannot run |
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any C64 programs. |
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Why would I want to listen to C64 music? |
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---------------------------------------- |
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The C64 had the most advanced sound capabilities of all home computers in |
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the early 80's. While other computers of that time were only able to produce |
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beeps, the C64 had a complete 3-voice analog synthesizer on its MOS 6581 |
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sound chip (called "SID" - "Sound Interface Device"). Even some more modern |
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computers (as the Atari ST or the first Macs) had worse sound. |
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The SID chip features three oscillators with selectable waveform, ADSR |
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envelope generators, programmable resonance filters and special effects like |
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ring modulation. With the aid of the CPU, it can also replay 4-bit sampled |
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sounds. SIDPlayer emulates all features of the SID chip, including the |
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filters. |
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There were (and are still) many composers programming excellent music for |
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the C64 and thousands of tunes have been converted for use with SID tune |
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replayers on nearly every existing computer platform. One big advantage of |
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SID tunes is that they take very little hard disk space: most are only 4-8K |
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in size. |
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System Requirements |
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------------------- |
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SIDPlayer runs on all Unix systems supported by SDL (which includes Linux, |
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FreeBSD, Solaris and Irix) and on BeOS R4.5 or later versions. |
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Successfully tested systems include: |
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- Linux/i386 |
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- BeOS/x86 R5 |
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- BeOS/ppc R4.5 |
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Supported file formats |
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---------------------- |
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The only SID tune file format supported by SIDPlayer is single-file PSID |
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files (these have the signature "PSID" in the first 4 bytes). Most SID music |
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available on the Internet is in this format. |
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Installing SIDPlayer |
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-------------------- |
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See the file "INSTALL". |
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Using SIDPlayer under BeOS |
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-------------------------- |
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SIDPlayer can be started from the Tracker or from the Shell. If you give the |
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name of a PSID file as an argument from the Shell or drag a PSID file onto |
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the SIDPlayer icon from the Tracker, that file is loaded and played. |
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The SIDPlayer window displays some information about the currently loaded |
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PSID file and has the usual tapedeck-like controls for pausing, restarting |
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and stopping the replay and for selecting the next or previous song |
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contained in the PSID file. The number of the song currently playing and the |
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total number of songs in the loaded PSID file are displayed to the right of |
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the tapedeck buttons. The slider in the bottom right of the window can be |
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used to adjust the replay speed. |
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The SIDPlayer menu has three items: |
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- "About SIDPlayer" shows some information about SIDPlayer |
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- "Sound Control" opens the sound control window (see below) |
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- "Quit" quits SIDPlayer |
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To load another PSID file, drag it into the SIDPlayer window. To quit |
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SIDPlayer, close the window or select the "Quit" menu item. |
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Some functions of SIDPlayer can also be controlled with the keyboard: |
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P : Play/pause |
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S : Stop |
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N : Next song |
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Esc/Space : Stop |
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Left arrow : Previous song |
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Right arrow: Next song |
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Q : Quit |
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Using SIDPlayer under Unix |
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-------------------------- |
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SIDPlayer currently only works as a command-line application. It is invoked |
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as follows: |
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sidplayer FILE [song_number] |
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"FILE" is the name of the PSID file to be loaded. The optional "song_number" |
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specifies the number of the song to be player (instead of the default song). |
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SIDPlayer cannot detect when a song has finished, so you have to use Ctrl-C |
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to quit it. |
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SIDPlayer accepts a number of command-line arguments. Type "sidplayer --help" |
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to get a list. |
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The Sound Control window (BeOS only) |
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------------------------------------ |
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Sound post-processing is controlled with the "Effect" pop-up menu and the |
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"Delay" and "Feedback" sliders. The available effects are "None" (no post- |
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processing), "Reverb" (simple reverb) and "Spatial" (reverb with phase |
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shift, intended for headphone users). |
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The checkbox labeled "Filters" is used to turn the emulation of the SID |
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filters on or off. |
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The "New SID Chip" checkbox selects the type of SID chip to be emulated. |
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Currently this only affects some combined waveforms. |
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The eight slider gadgets in the right part of the window control the stereo |
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panning and volume of each of the four voices (3 synthesized voices, 1 |
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sampled voice). |
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Where do I get PSID files |
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------------------------- |
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The two largest collections of SID tunes are the "High Voltage" SID |
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Collection (http://hvsc.c64.org) and the "NemeSIDs" archive |
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(ftp://frodo.hiof.no/pub/c64/sidmusic). These have been used for testing |
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during the development of SIDPlayer and they should all work. |
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Twenty demonstration SID tunes are included with SIDPlayer in the "PSID |
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Demo" directory. |
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Support |
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------- |
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Updates of SIDPlayer are available on the official SIDPlayer home page: |
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http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/SPMain.html |
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History |
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------- |
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V1.0 - First release |
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V2.0 - SID filter emulation, better envelope generation |
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V2.1 - Implemented notch filter, 60Hz replay now works, added faster/ |
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slower buttons, compiled for BeOS DR8 |
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V2.2 - Improved the 6510, triangle waveform is now 12 bits, output |
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clipping, stereo output, corrected SID sustain behaviour, |
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reading from a write-only SID register returns the last byte |
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written to the SID, combined waveforms sampled from a 6581R4 |
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V2.3 - Corrected BRK, DCP, ARR and LAS instructions, volume levels up |
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to 200% possible, compiled for BeOS DR9 |
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V2.4 - Shows name/author/copyright in ISO-Latin1 |
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V2.5 - Converted panning/volume sliders to BSlider class |
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V3.0 - Unified PPC/x86 release |
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V4.0 - Now based on Frodo V5 CPU/SID code (more efficient CPU emulation, |
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post-processing effects (reverb, spatial), prefs manager), replaced |
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faster/slower buttons by slider, added popup menu and sound control |
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window, ported to BeOS R5 with new Media Kit, implemented CIA timer |
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speed control, and SIDPlayer can now also be used as a CL-Amp plugin |
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V4.1 - Runs as a command-line application under Unix (requiring SDL), |
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preferences items can be passed on the command line, and SIDPlayer |
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can now also be used as a SoundPlay plugin |
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V4.2 - Fixed writes to mirrored SID registers, output to WAV file is possible |
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in SDL version |
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Acknowledgements |
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---------------- |
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Special thanks go to Claes Löfqvist and Marco Nelissen for their help with |
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adding CL-Amp and SoundPlay plugin support. |
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Christian Bauer |
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<Christian.Bauer@uni-mainz.de> |
