Please bear in mind that the fact that these programs are distributed on the Suitcase ™ disk does not imply that you have in any way paid for them.
Fifth Generation Systems is simply acting as a carrier and we have no financial agreement (i.e. unless you send me the fee I request, I will not make any money out of this copy of the Package).
Having said that…
The Sound Manager Package (SMP ) is priced at $20US.
They may, however, be distributed (for free, except for a nominal handling charge) via the usual PD carriers such as Compuserve, User Groups and PD collection disks, on the basis of the well known shareware system whereby you try before you buy. You are in fact welcomed and urged to give copies of the SMP to all your friends, so long as this document is included with the package.
If you keep and/or use any of the four programs that comprise the SMP for longer than a fair trial period of two weeks, you are expected to pay for the package.
If, on the other hand, you decide you don't like or need these programs, then simply trash them and you'll owe me nothing.
Paying for the SMP is very simple: print out the registration form that follows the Help screens in Sound Mover, slip it in an envelope with your payment and send it AIR MAIL to:
Riccardo Ettore
67 rue de la limite
1970 W-Oppem, BELGIUM
Why should you send in the registration fee?
Legally and morally speaking, of course, you have no choice: the programs constituting the SMP are my intellectual property and you are not at liberty to use them after the trial period unless you pay me. (Please bear in mind that I did not earn a single penny out of whatever amount you spent downloading the programs or ordering them from a PD distribution service.)
Pragmatically speaking, I'll acknowledge your payment by sending you a properly printed, more detailed, illustrated manual (including a C source code example for playing 'snd ' resources from your own programs) and an 800K disk containing the very latest revision of the programs and over 600K of my favourite digitized sounds (ranging from light-hearted insults to various kinds of laughter to animal sounds and more).
If I ever decide to reserve a version with extra features for Registered Users only, you will receive the first such upgrade free of charge. Naturally, registering for one version of the Package entitles you to use and keep all subsequent upgrades that come your way.
But most important of all, I'll consider your payment as the most sincere form of flattery and I will be encouraged to improve this package and write more programs for you to try before you buy.
So, if you think my programs are useful or simply entertaining, you owe it to yourself to pay for them.
How do you use the programs in the package?
Although you should find them fairly simple to use, here is a short description of each of the programs. Please note that the printed manual I'll send you on receiving your registration fee is much more detailed than these few lines.
Sound Mover
Introduction
As a Macintosh user, you are very likely to be familiar with the concept of moving Fonts and Desk Accessories into and out of the System file or indeed any other document or program file, to make them available as required by your application(s).
Sound Mover lets you do exactly the same to sounds, that is, the resources of type 'snd ' that have appeared with the introduction of the Mac II and System 4.1.
These sound resources were initially only used and known by users of the Mac II, since on that machine a Control Panel option called Sound will list all available (that is, installed in the system file) sounds and replace the standard beep with whatever sound you click on.
Since the introduction of IBeep2 on October 14, 1987 MacPlus/SE users can also change the beep sound as easily as on the Mac II, hence creating yet another group of people in need of a simple sound moving utility (vs. the all-singing all-dancing, but sometime feared ResEdit ).
And then, of course, there's HyperCard, which has a play command to play sound resources installed in a stack, HyperCard itself or the System file. Although stacks exist to let you move sounds between stacks, Sound Mover should come in handy in that respect, too.
How do you use it?
Almost exactly as you would use F/DA Mover from Apple. The major difference is that you must hold down the shift key when you want to select a group of sounds (press the command key to make several disjointed selections).
Of course, just as F/DA Mover gives you a sample of the font at the bottom of the screen, so Sound Mover shows you the waveform of the sound and (provided your volume is not set to zero) plays it for you.
Here are a few functions that are specific to Sound Mover :
Changing the volume is a simple matter of clicking on the loudspeaker icon, which corresponds initially to whatever volume was set with the Control Panel. On leaving Sound Mover, you'll find that the sound level was restored to its previous setting.
Tip: to toggle between full volume and silence, hold down the option key as you click the icon.
Clicking and dragging on the waveform will select a section of the sound which you can then play by pressing any key. Clicking on the waveform while pressing option will play the whole sound again and cancel any partial selections.
To copy only the selected portion of the sound to another file, simply hold down the option key as you click the Copy button. A dialog will appear to allow you to change the name of the sound (if you wish) and to show you the length of the new sound.
If you keep the option key pressed as you click Open, you'll be able to copy sounds into any document or application. If you don't press option, you'll only be able to open those files that are recognized by Sound Mover (see printed manual for more details).
Just above the information on the size of the sound in the middle of the screen, you'll see an indication of the type of 'snd ' resource you have selected. Format 1 snd's can be used as a beep on the Mac II but cannot be played by HyperCard. However, when copying sounds from one side to the other, Sound Mover is smart enough to detect if the destination file is a stack and if so, it will automatically convert type 1 snd's to type 2. Viceversa, when copying sounds out of a stack and into a file created with Sound Mover (or indeed into any other file that is not a stack) they will be converted back to type 1.
Just under the volume control icon you'll see an indication of the original sampling rate: 22K effectively means that the sound takes up 22Kbytes of memory per second, 5K sounds are of lower quality, but will save you a lot of disk space!
11K appears to be the best compromise between quality and size.
If you hold down the Command key as you click Copy, the sound will be cut in half as it gets copied to the other side by removing every other byte. This is extremely useful to save disk space and very often I cannot hear any difference between a sound taking say 60,000 bytes at 22K and the same sound after chopping it down to 30,000 bytes and playing it at 11K.
I found a lot of HyperCard stacks where sounds are needlessly sampled at 22K. After downsampling with SoundMover, the stack can sometimes be cut by as much as 50% with no audible loss of sound quality, a considerable saving of disk space and quicker loading of the sound(s) into memory at playback time.
A detailed description of the editing functions is beyond the scope of this document. Please refer to the printed manual for details.
Sound Mover 1.40 can also convert to and from sounds stored in the data fork of files, such as those created with most popular digitizers (SoundCap, SoundWave, SoundEdit). The Sound->snd program previously part of the SMP is therefore no longer distributed or supported.
IBeep2 (not compatible with System 6.0)
Introduction
IBeep2 (pronounced I beep too) is a small program (technically called a CDEV) that performs a function similar to that of the Sound file found on System 4.1 and later, i.e. it lets you pick an alternative to the standard sound of the Macintosh beep. The difference is that while Sound will only work on a Mac II, IBeep2 is for 'the rest of us' Plus and SE users.
How do you use it?
In order to use IBeep2, you must place it in the System Folder of your startup disk. The next time you open the Control Panel you'll find its icon along with those of any other installed CDEVs.
Clicking on this new icon will display a list of any resources of type 'snd ' in your system file (such as Monkey or Boing). The list will also include any sounds you add to a file called snd (i.e. the three lower case letters s,n and d) which must be in the system folder. Use Sound Mover to create this file and fill it with the desired sound(s). This feature means you can keep your system file lean and mean, yet still have access to a large number of beep sounds.
Selecting the name of a sound will have it replace the Mac's standard beep. If you select a name while pressing option, you'll be able to hear it without replacing the present setting.
NOTE however that the very first time you use IBeep2 on your Mac, you will be invited to restart it in order for the alternate beep to take effect. This is because a patch to replace the standard beep with the one of your choice needs to be installed by an INIT which runs automatically at startup time. This INIT is recreated each time you change the sound, and it's simply not there the very first time you use IBeep2.
Where to get new beeps.
Many strange and wonderful sounds are available on Compuserve's MAUG and I'm sure that many more must be available via User Groups and such.
The sounds are usually distributed as uncompressed SoundCap data files. Before they can be used as beeps by either IBeep2 or Apple's Sound (MacII only), they need to be converted to resources of type 'snd ' and installed in the System file (4.1 or later) or in a file called 'snd' in the system folder (IBeep2 only) or in any sound suitcase file that you then open with Suitcase™ or Font/DA Juggler™. Sound Mover (v1.40 or later) will handle the conversion automatically as you move the sound from a data file to a resource file (such as the system or a suitcase file) and viceversa.
StartupSndInit
Introduction
This little critter is a file of type INIT which will automatically be executed at startup if you place it in your System Folder.
What it does is first of all look at the volume setting: if it's zero, it does nothing at all. Otherwise, it looks inside itself for resources of type 'snd ' and plays them.
How do you use it?
Fill it with the sound(s) you want played at startup using Sound Mover .
Place it in your System Folder, make sure the sound level is at least 1 and reboot.
NOTE: If you ever have to restart the Macintosh in front of your boss, or in the middle of the night while your children are asleep, and don't want the startup sound(s) to be played, you can either press the mouse button or the caps-lock key while restarting.
ShutdownSndInit
This INIT installs a routine that will play the 'snd ' of your choice when you shutdown or restart you Mac.
How do you use it?
Place it in the System Folder and reboot. The 'snd ' you want played must be called 'Bye' and reside either in the actual System file or in a sound mover suitcase which must then be opened with Suitcase or F/DA Juggler. The file containing the 'Bye' sound does not itself need to be named Bye.
Since it uses the SndPlay trap, this program requires System 6.0 or higher to work on any Mac or System 4.1 and up to work on the II family.
Because of a weird (well, I certainly can't figure out why) incompatibility problem, ShutDownSndInit must not be executed immediately prior to StartupSndInit. This is why I've appended a 2 and a 1 in front of their respective names. If you must rename them, make sure the new name you use for StartupSnd is alphabetically lower than the one for ShutDownSnd. That's because INITs are executed in alphabetical order, unless you're using a utility such as INITpicker.
If you prefer, you may also use the INIT I called StartupShutDownSndINIT (for lack of a longer name!!!) which simultaneously plays the 'snd 's it contains AND installs the procedure that will play the 'Bye' sound at shutdown time.
The choice is yours.
Conclusion
This concludes the description of the SMP. I hope you enjoy using any or all of the four programs in the package as much as I enjoyed creating them. If you do, please take the time to send your registration fee, preferably using the form on the next page, although even a scrap of paper will do. This will encourage me to write and distribute more programs in future.
Thank you in advance for your support,
Riccardo Ettore 72277,1344
WARNING
These programs have been tested by members of the European Communities Computer Club in Brussels, but I cannot be sure that all bugs have been ironed out. There are no apparent vicious bugs, but the usual CAUTION is recommended when you use any of the programs in the Sound Manager Package in your own environment.
I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY for any loss of data due to the use of the SMP.
PS Feel free to write to me in any of the following languages:
