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SOUND BLASTER DIGEST Number 2 January 1991 Edition. A newsletter for Sound Blaster Enthusiasts. Edited by Brad Barclay. Made possible by the contributions of Sound Blaster users. /\ ____________________________ / \/\ \ / \ ________________________________ \ / \ / \/ \ / \/ TABLE OF CONTENTS ================= Editor's Forum..........................1 Letters to the Editor...................2 Commercial Review.......................3 Shareware Review........................4 Improving your system through .VOC......5 VOUT vs. VPLAY..........................8 Sound Blaster in the BBS world..........9 Enclosed Files.........................10 Wrapping it up.........................11 - 1 - EDITOR'S FORUM -------------- By Brad Barclay. Well, here it is, ready in time for the new year. Yes, this is actually the second edition of THE SOUND BLASTER DIGEST, and it is improved over the last edition: more letters, more articles, more information, more authors, and all around much more of what you, the user, wants in a newsletter. In this issue we discuss the differences between VOUT and VPLAY, we make our reviews on Commercial and Shareware software, we list numerous BBS's with Sound Blaster support, and you will first-hand be able to read the first letter sent to myself in our 'Letters to the Editor' column. One of the greatest joys that I have encountered when writing this newsletter is the amount of user support that I get every day. This newsletter is unique, as it is not only written by the users, but their ideas and support keep it going. So if you like this newsletter, help the cause, and distribute it around to other systems in your area. We all win when more people have more access to this publication. For those of you who are new to reading the SBD (as we around the 'office' like to call this), we welcome you, and we hope that you enjoy this little publication, and feel that it is worth your support. For those of you who have read the first edition, I hope you enjoy this second one, and that you too will continue to support this fine newsletter by sharing it around, and submitting your ideas. Before we start, there are a few people I would like to thank, who really made a difference in making possible this issue. They are Jeff Woods, sysop of THE MUSICAL CHAIR BBS, and author of our first review, Edward R. Fenton for sending the gracious letter (reprinted below in the LETTERS TO THE EDITOR column) and the accompanying cheque, and many others who submitted the information contained in the article on Sound Blaster BBS numbers. You are the ones who help make this possible! Thank-you! - 2 - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR --------------------- Just today I was happily excited to have received the SBD's first letter to the editor, from a reader who lives in Topeka, Kansas: -------------------- Dear Mr. Barclay: Cheers for your Sound Blaster Digest! As an owner of an "old" card I am a novice with its full use and welcome information as your Digest provides. I downloaded it from GEnie's IBM section and look forward to future issues. You wrote on page 6 about extensions. I have acquired gobs of .ROL and .CMF files but lack the proper software to use them. Where do I obtain PLAYROL, PLAYCMF or MUCH MUSIC? I've searched GEnie with no luck. I'm also having trouble converting .ROL files to .CMF files using the ROL2CMF file (GEnie IBM #19789). The sparse instructions aren't very clear. If you can't respond personally to my problems, please consider addressing them in a future Digest issue. Many thanks. Sincerely, Edward R. Fenton P.S. Please accept a small contribution enclosed and keep up the good work. -------------------- Well, Mr. Fenton will be glad to know that I am sending him both a personal reply and an advance copy of this edition. It is the least I can do for the $20 US (which comes out to about $24 Canadian) he so kindly sent me. See the end of this issue for information about sending a LETTER TO THE EDITOR. - 3 - COMMERCIAL REVIEW ----------------- Here's an article by the SBD's home BBS sysop, Jeff Woods: -------------------- Space Ace, by ReadySoft (Richmond Hill, ON) A review by Jeff Woods ______________________ Retail: $69.95/CDN That lovable character out to save the world from the evil Commander Borf and his infanto-ray is back.... However, this time, he's not quite so lovable. Oh, the concept of the game was great in the arcade -- three levels of play, the top one offering about 25 minutes if you could successfully navigate it. The plot in the arcade was terrific, and there was a lot of dialogue between the characters of Kimi and Dexter (call me Ace, eh?). This is missing entirely in the game, as is the rescue of Kimi. In converting this classic laser-disc game to the PC, something is lost. What is there in the way of graphics and Sound Blaster support is quite stunning. But many of the best scenes from the game were left out, leaving the PC version with very little plot, and next to no continuity. I do realize the ReadySoft was limited in what they could do by disk space (even what little is there took 10 floppies to ship), but then, that's no excuse in my book. I'd MUCH rather have paid twice the price for a reasonable facsimile of the arcade game. Noticeably annoying is a spot near the beginning of the game where the user is left in a situation that looks much like the character is dying over and over, when in fact, a complex series of moves is required at that point. Once past that, the game is actually quite simple, and not near as challenging as the arcade version. My ratings: Sound Blaster Support : 9.5 Playability: 4.5 Graphics (CGA/EGA/VGA): 10.0 Enjoyment: 5.0 Closeness to original: 2.0 Value: 6.0 In short, if you're an SB junkie, it might be worth purchasing. However, I wish I had not. Sullivan Bluth's implementation on laser disc was MUCH better, and I'll now wait for these types of games to appear on CD-ROM for the PC before I pop for one again. - 4 - SHAREWARE REVIEW ---------------- This month's Shareware review is on Winfred Hu's MUCH MUSIC, as written by our editor, Brad Barclay. MUCH MUSIC by Winfred Hu is the perfect program for playing those .ROL and .CMF files. It's easy to use menuing system allows you to select multiple files of both types to play one after another, giving you the effect of playing a record. The program gives the user a number of options. The user may select in what directories to read the music files from, he/she may select to play music files out of a ZIP file (which is an excellent idea, as it usually saves a lot of space), and the user may skip on to the next song at any time they wish. But this piece of software does have it's faults. Firstly, the songs will not play in the order you marked them in, but will instead play the first listed .ROL song file marked (if one is marked), and then continue playing all the .ROL's. Once finished, it then goes on to play the marked .CMF's, in the order that they are listed. This can be a problem for those who compress their hard drives with programs that also sorts the files in their directories as, for example, the files will play in alpha order. Secondly, there is a slight but noticeable difference in the sound quality when playing back .CMF files. The difference is usually not enough to warrant not using this program as the song is still usually well played, but instead the instrument tone may seem to differ then when played with PLAYCMF. Lastly, MUCH MUSIC does not work very well playing the .ROL files with the SB- SOUND driver. There is a tendency to get the separate voices out of synchronization when this driver is used. But all in all, this is an excellent program, and is well worth downloading. No Sound Blaster enthusiast should be without it. MUCH MUSIC Author: Winfred Hu. SBD Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars). - 5 - IMPROVING YOUR SYSTEM THROUGH .VOC ---------------------------------- Written by Brad Barclay. One of the greatest things about the Sound Blaster card is it's support for playing back digitized files, with it's built-in decompression, and it's DMA (direct memory access) capabilities to take nearly all the work away from the microprocessor. But isn't there a better use for these great files then just to listen to every so often? The answer is yes. There are numerous ways you can improve the look and feel of your system by putting digitized capabilities into it. By placing .VOC support into batch files, you can instruct or help those who are not as familiar with your system, provide easy information to all, and make it all-around a system with a difference. All of the ideas included in this article are mainly for hard disk users. Using these ideas on a diskette-based only system can take up a lot of diskette space, and make your system act and run batch files slower, and can only annoy people. So if you run off of diskettes, you will probably be able to use some of these, but determining for yourself their merit on your system. Of course, you're going to need a few things. A Sound Blaster card is imperative, and you should have VPLAY and the VOXKIT for playing back and recording your voice files. You could use VOUT, but it will cause your system to act more slowly. See the article VOUT vs VPLAY in this edition of THE SOUND BLASTER DIGEST for more information on the differences between these command line players. Here's some ideas for things to do in batch files with those wonderful .VOC's... 1) Try playing someone saying 'Hello' or something into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, to greet people when they log-on. 2) If you have programs that only run on certain days, such as scanning for virus' on the 1st of the month, try playing a .VOC in a batch file that will run the scan or whatever to let other users know what's happening. 3) Play a .VOC file at the end of batch files that control events that often occur on your system, where you probably leave the room to wait for the function to stop. For example, my system says "Hey you! Yeah you! Your transfer's done!" at the end of a transfer using an external protocol. - 6 - 4) If you run on a password based system that can detect which user is on from a batch file, you could easily create a voice mail system. I have personally done this, and have found it very useful to let others know that perhaps there's a problem with a certain program, or to remind myself to print out an important document, or to call my favorite BBS at a specific time. It's easy to construct, and you could create a simple menu-system to play/record/delete each users mail. Just create a directory containing sub-directories which are named after your users. Included are some sample batch files to allow your users to send/receive mail. All you need to do is to change USER1, etc to the user name, etc. The batch files are for use with PC-VAULT, a popular protection program, but could be adapted to fit any password system, as long as it can determine which user is which. Not included, but useful for this purpose is to add a part to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to check if the file exists, and then notify the user that a piece of mail is waiting. The .VOC files are not limited in any way to just listening to "Hello" upon booting your system anymore! Let your imagination fly: you can never tell what you might come up with! If you come up with another great use for those .VOC files, write a letter to the Editor, and he'll be sure to post your recommendation (we reserve the right to edit any letter as to make it fit into the issue). - 7 - \ / ___\/___ Live and on the Now in stereo! || air from Toronto! /||\ Node 2 is now up! || The Musical Chair ==== at Experience the difference of: ====== 438-1686 & 438-3009 ==== 1000's of Adlib and SB music files || _______ 1200-14,400 50 gaming doors online || | | baud & v.32 3 mail networks || | | _____ 1 crazy and caring sysop ______|| | | | | ||\ | |___| | Around the clock..... Sky || \ | | | | Around the world..... Dome || \| | | | Around the bend..... |||| | | | | |||||| | | | | The M sical Chai ...438-3009 ||||||||| | | | |||||||||| | | | What's missing? U R! - 8 - VPLAY VS. VOUT -------------- By Brad Barclay. Many of the new Sound Blaster users don't realize it, but Creative Labs didn't always send the program VPLAY.EXE with the Sound Blaster. The first major version of the Sound Blaster came with a program called VOUT to play those Creative Voice Files. VOUT is suffeciently differant from VPLAY that I thought it warrented an entire article of it's own, and I believe any serious Sound Blaster user should have both. The differances are many. Both have features the other doesn't. The first really noticable one is that VOUT does not use two buffers to read/play a voice file at the same time, and thus you are limited by RAM memory on your system for playing a Voice File, as VOUT must load the entire .VOC at once, and then play it. But this can be an advantage. Even on faster machines there is a slight pause as the computer loads in sme more data. There isn't this problem with VOUT, as it doesn't have to do anything while it's playing. The next differance is that with VPLAY you can play your .VOC in the background, where with VOUT all that you can do is sit and wait while it plays: unless you're running under a multi-tasking system, there is no way to do anything else while you're playing your .VOC. But not all the differances between the two make one think that VPLAY must be the better program. In fact, there are a few things that you can do with VOUT, but not with VPLAY. For example, with VOUT you can specify what speed to play your .VOC at: thus you can play is either faster or slower, without having to change the actual speed of the .VOC. Also, with VOUT you can play an 8 bit digitized file that doesn't have a Sound Blaster header. This is good for testing, for example, the proper playing speed of a digitized file from a different computer system before adding the header. So, as you can see, both VOUT and VPLAY have their advantages, and thus are both an equally valuable part of any Sound Blaster users software library. - 9 - SOUND BLASTER IN THE BBS WORLD ------------------------------ By Brad Barclay. Here's a small but growing list of BBS's in North America that are officially registered with THE SOUND BLASTER DIGEST. If you can't find the newest version of the SBD, try checking one of these BBS's. They are all fine systems, and have support for Sound Blaster users, and ar ethus also a great place to get in touch with other users in your area. The list will be updated every few months as new and more systems register with us. If you run a BBS, with Sound Blaster conferences and and files, let me know: you can find out how to reach me below. Where information was not available, or wasn't recieved, the entry will be left blank. This only occurs for CITY/PROVINCE/STATE and SYSOP'S NAME. Check the area code of the phone number if you would like to get an idea of where it's located. SYSTEM NAME PHONE NUMBER CITY/PROVINCE/STATE SYSOP'S NAME =========== ============ =================== ============ Arkon BBS (416)593-7460 Toronto, Ontario. Jacky Lee Beltway Bandits (703)764-9297 -- Unknown -- -- Unknown -- Data Dimention (404)921-1186 Atlanta Georgia -- Unknown -- Dead End BBS (703)821-7544 -- Unknown -- -- Unknown -- Electronic Age (703)620-0851 -- Unknown -- -- Unknown -- Friends & Family (214)960-3189 Dallas, Texas Jim Neargarder House of Ichthys (305)360-2991 Deerfield Beach, Florida Leonzo E. Miller III Jim's Dream (202)581-1422 -- Unknown -- Jim Walls Musical Chair (416)438-3009 Toronto, Onatrio Jeff Woods Running Board (301)229-5342 -- Unknown -- -- Unknown -- The Double AAce (214)606-0703 Grand Praire, Texas Mike Hutchkins The HUB (703)685-0019 -- Unknown -- -- Unknown -- Trolls & Tribulations (703)263-0827 -- Unknown -- -- Unknown -- - 10 - ENCLOSED FILES -------------- Enclosed in this edition are two different .ZIP files. The first is BNK945.ZIP, the largest collection of Adlib insturment files in the Adlib .BNK format that I have ever seen. The second, VMAIL.ZIP are some sample batch files for use with PC-VAULT to allow different users to leave each-other Voice Mail. They are not intended to be run 'as-is', but will require editing and shaping for your own system. A knowledge of DOS batch files is nesissary to use these. - 11 - WRAPPING IT UP -------------- Well, that's about it for another edition of THE SOUND BLASTER DIGEST. I would like to thank once again those who helped me get this edition going: they know who they are. Although this edition had some things from a few different authors, it is still nearly totally my effort that makes THE SOUND BLASTER DIGEST what it is. This is to be expected for the editor, but more authors would be welcome. If you wish to write an article for THE SOUND BLASTER DIGEST, write it up, and send it to me (see below for details on contacting me). About correspondance to myself: I will attempt to answer all letters sent to me, if not in the next issue, I will at least always send a personal reply. You need not send money: true, the author of the letter we featured above sent money, but it is in no way nesissary. But by sending a small ammount, you can feel good about supporting this publication, and I will send you the newest copy of THE SOUND BLASTER DIGEST before it's ever sent to any BBS system. Your money also helps keep me motivated, and helps me buy gifts for my girlfriend, who provides me with moral support. A note to Shareware authors and Sysops: if your software or BBS contains a large ammount of Sound Blaster support, let me know. For the sysops, we will add your BBS as one registered with the SBD, giving you a spot on our BBS list, and bragging rights. For software authors: by sending a copy of your software to us, you can guarentee that we will write a review as soon as possible. Registered versions are more prefferable if you're distribution version is crippled in any way, as it allows us to give it a better, more true review. This can be worth ignoring the registration fee: your software will be advertised and read by people in both North America and Europe (reports have it that we're being sent to the United Kingdom by some users). But the choice is totally up to you. To contact the editor, you may leave E-mail on a number of BBS systems to Brad Barclay. Nearly every BBS number given in this issue has the echoed Sound Card/Adlib conferance, of which I am a frequent participant. You can also contact me by mailing a letter, or telephoning myself at the following address: SOUND BLASTER DIGEST c/o Brad Barclay 36 Sutter ave. Brampton, Ontario CANADA L6Z 1G7 Phone: (416) 846-5599.