ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

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Text File | 1991-03-03 | 34.2 KB | 794 lines

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPUTTER Sound System v1.15 changes: For instant registration, you can now call by phone to receive your registration number, in advance of sending your check. This will unlock The Sputter Sound System immediately. For details, see the registration section in the documentation file SPUTTER.DOC, or in the registration form MAILER.TXT. SPUT Sound File Player changes: . Fixed system hanging when EMM386.SYS was loaded. This was caused by an improper check for the presence of Virtual DMA Services in the Memory manager. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPUTTER Sound System v1.14 changes: SPUTTER File Manager changes: . Added support for playing Creative Labs .CMF files using the new CMF File Player SPUTCMF. SPUTMON Event Monitor changes: . Added ability to enter switches and event definition filename on same command line. . Changed meaning of #C operator to define a CMF file, and added the #D operator to define a DOS command/batch file. . Fixed T events in SPUTMON hanging system when running The Norton Utilities v4.5. SPUT File Player changes: . Added support for the Disney Sound Source. This is a very inexpensive (under $25) DAC and amplified speaker that attaches to the parallel port. . Added ability to pres +/- keys while playing sound files to increase/decrease the overall volume. . Fixed SoundBlaster Shell switch /SH not working properly on certain machines. . Fixed not reporting command syntax error in SPUTARG properly. SPUTROL ROL File Player: . Added ability to press +/- keys while playing a ROL file to increase/decrease the overall volume of the music. . Fixed not reporting command syntax error in SROLARG properly. . Fixed not handling volume changes from /A switch properly. . Fixed not handling /C continous play switch properly. . Fixed hanging system when an error occurs after loading SOUND.COM. SPUTCMF CMF File Player: . New program to play Creative Labs .CMF music files on the AdLib compatible FM port using the Creative Labs FM sound driver SBFMDRV.COM. This player can shell to DOS while playing a CMF file in the background, and can automatically load the Creative Labs FM sound driver SBFMDRV, and remove it when finished. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPUTTER Sound System v1.13 changes: SPUT File Player changes: . Fixed new code to support Virtual DMA Services (VDS) causing XT's with no memory manager to hang. . Fixed selecting wrong SoundBlaster driver for non 8-bit files. . Fixed incorrect file identification of SoundBlaster .VOC files that contain Marker and Repeat blocks. . Changed default SoundBlaster driver from 1(direct) to 2(DMA) especially for slower machines. SPUTMON Event Monitor changes: . Fixed INT25/26 handler causing Norton Utilities to hang. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPUTTER Sound System v1.12 changes: SPUTTER File Manager changes: . Fixed display problems when used with video BIOS accelerators. SPUTMON Event Monitor changes: . Fixed ^Z in event definition file causing "Syntax error" message for a non-existent line number. . Fixed #C shell command problems when using 4DOS. . Fixed INT25/INT26 handlers causing CHKDSK to hang. . Added K event type to attach soundfiles to keystrokes. . Added /F switch to toggle fast command line playback. SPUT Sound File Player changes: . Fixed digitizing text file with "/W<filename>" switch overwriting SPUT.DIC dictionary file and then causing "memory alloc error". . Fixed "Sound Blaster init failure" not restoring vectors properly and causing "Another SPUTTER player already running" errors. . Fixed SoundBlaster DMA problems when running in mapped memory. This problem was only seen when running in a mapped DESQview window or when SPUT was loaded in high memory. . Fix SoundBlaster /SHell switch problems when used with 4DOS. . Fixed screen output messing up certain display adapters. . Fixed confusion when /P is given on the command line in addition to being specified by the SPUTARG environment variable. . Added support for SampleVision .SMP 16-bit digitized sound files. . Added support for 12-bit digitized sound files. SPUTROL ROL File Player changes: . Fixed bad lookup of first instrument in bank file. . Fixed screen output messing up certain display adapters. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPUTTER Sound System v1.11 changes: . Improved documentation with new Installation & User Guide sections. . The SPUTTER Sound System is no longer limited in any way. Now, a shareware message is displayed when file playback is completed, and a short delay will occur. This message and delay is removed when you register your copy. . Added a new ROL file player described in detail below. . Added a complete Text-to-Speech package described in detail below. . Redesigned the File Manager interface using windows and pull-down menus. . Miscellaneous enhancements and bug fixes described below. SPUTTER File Manager changes: . Redesigned screens using windows & colors, and added pull-down menus with on-screen help. . Added information display box with files-marked, bytes-marked counters, and state of toggle switches. . Added menu line at top of screen, invoked with F10, or the slash key. . Added function key line at bottom of screen with new functions. (All the CTRL key functions remain the same). . Added option to not pause after playback when output is enabled. This may be toggled with F7. . Added ability to re-read current directory with F3, or change drive/directory with F4. Hitting ENTER with the bar placed on a directory will also change to that directory. . After mark/unmark commands, bar is moved in same direction as last up/down arrow command. . Added ability perform an operation on a single file even when multiple files are tagged. . Added separate argument selection screens for SOUND, TEXT and ROL files. . Added preview window to display short excerpt of file contents. This is only filled in if the bar remains stationary for at least one second. As long as you move the bar faster than this, no files will be read and no disk accesses will occur. . Added display of error messages, instead of just beeping on errors. . Added enhanced support when running under DESQview. . Now executes SPUT to play text files instead of TRAN. . Now executes SPUTROL to play ROL files instead of PLAYROL. . Fixed not finding player programs properly when located in the root directory of a disk or ramdrive. . Fixed not finding player programs properly when an environment variable exists that contains the word 'PATH' in addition to the normal PATH variable (ie. Brief's BPATH variable). . Fixed playing a file with arguments sometimes scrolls to the end of the file list and hangs. SPUT Player Utility changes: . Added ability to play digitized sound files on the AdLib card. Only 6-bit sound is possible through this port, so the quality of sound is not much better than the PC internal speaker, but the volume will be much better. The AdLib port is selected by using the /P388-A switch. . Added ability to determine the correct playback rate for Macintosh sound files. This only works if the Resource Fork was included when the file was unarchived from the .SIT stuff-it file. If the Resource Fork is missing, a warning message is displayed. . Added the ability to resample sound files while playing them instead of just when writing to disk with the /W switch. The file statistics now display the new playback rate and frequency instead of the old information. . Added oversampling capability to all device driver routines instead of just the internal speaker. . The interrupt driver for the internal speaker (selected with /D3) automatically adjusts the playback rate if the desired playback rate is too fast for the current system. This will prevent system lock-ups which occur when trying to use too high a rate for that machine. A warning message is displayed, and the file can then be resampled to the rate in the warning message. . Effects of oversampling with /O switch are now preserved when used with the /W switch to write a new sound file. . Removed the SPUTPOR environment variable, since this function is duplicated by the SPUTARG variable. (ie: SPUTARG=/Pnnn) . Removed 30k byte limit on playback for unregistered users, and added a shareware message and delay that is removed upon registration. . Added code to auto select the proper Sound Blaster driver depending on file format and switches. Formats 42,44,46 and the /SH shell switch require the DMA driver (/D2). Use of any switches that modify the data (/A/H/L/O/RS/T) requires use of the DIRECT driver (/D1). You cannot use any of the switches that modify the sound data with file formats 42,44,46 or the /SH switch. . Added check for other Sputter utilities already running before starting file playback, to eliminate playback of multiple sounds occurring at the same time. . File extensions are no longer required. 'SPUT file' will perform a wildcard lookup on FILE.*. This is most useful when defining events for SPUTMON in the Event Definition file. . Added complete Text-to-Speech package with the following features: . Can digitize any combination of text & phonemes entered at the SPUT > prompt in interactive mode. Registered users can also digitize any text file. . Text may include phoneme strings to correct pronounciation of words. Smooth Talker phoneme strings are also recognized and supported. The SPUT phoneme string for the word "vapor" is ~V-EY-P-ER (case is not important). The SMOOTH TALKER phoneme string for the word "vapor" is <<~vEYpER>> (case is important). . Text may also include special functions to fine tune some of the parameters that affect the digitized sound. ~An to vary the amplitude (volume), ~Rn to vary the rate (speed), ~Pn to determine how much punctuation to pronounce, ~Mn to set word or letter pronounciation. These functions can be used to change the inflection of syllables, words, phrases or the entire file. . Interchangable voice files can be selected from the SPUT command line with the /V switch. A temporary male voice has been provided with this release. The next release will contain an improved male voice and a female voice. . Interchangable dictionary files can be selected from the SPUT command line with the /DI switch. The exception dictionary can be used to correct SPUT's pronounciation of a word, expand abbreviations, or add inflections to any word or phrase. . The /PH and /RU switches can be used to tell SPUT to display all phonemes & rule numbers used in forming digitized words. . The /TI switch can be used to have SPUT digitize and say the current time. . The /F10 file format switch has been added for text files. SPUTMON Event Monitor changes: . Removed 1 hour limitation for unregistered users. The Event Monitor is no longer limited in any way. . Removed bells that played just before playing a sound file at the DOS prompt. . The event definition file can now be found anywhere in the Path. . Cleaned up summary display so long lines will be truncated instead of wrapping to the next line. . Changed all PLAYROL references to now call SPUTROL. . Changed all TRAN references to now call SPUT. . Added check for other Sputter utilities already running before starting a second player utility. Retry bells will also be suppressed when another player utility is already running. . Added display of active timer count to summary line. . Fixed incorrect counters that sometimes caused files to be played minutes late, or prevented playback from the DOS prompt. . Fixed not passing environment to SPUT when started via the #C function. This caused SPUT to not find it's environment variables. . Fixed BELL character sometimes hanging system when no BELL event was defined in event definition file. . Fixed presence of a T event in event file causing error messages for non-existent line numbers. . Fixed not finding player programs properly when located in the root directory of a disk or ramdrive. . Fixed not finding player programs properly when an environment variable exists that contains the word 'PATH' in addition to the normal PATH variable (ie. Brief's BPATH variable). . Fixed code to find DOS critical-error-flag to work with Compaq DOS. SPUTROL ROL File Player (New!) with the following features: . Automatically loads & unloads AdLib driver SOUND.COM if not already loaded. Useful when memory is a prime consideration. . Plays ANY song correctly even with a small AdLib sound buffer. . Has random file selection capability. . Allows user defined instrument substitutions with /IS. . Attempts to pick a close match for missing instruments. . Allows playback of any combination of voices with /V . Can change tempo from command line with /T switch. . Can change relative playback volume with /A switch. . Allows continous or repeated playback with /C switch. . Default directory can be set via the SROLDIR variable. . Default switches can be set via the SROLARG variable. . File extension is not required. A default extension of .* is assumed if missing, and a wildcard lookup is performed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPUTTER Sound System v1.10 changes: SPUT Player Utility changes: . Added support for the Sound Blaster DAC port in both direct and DMA modes. This means you can play ANY file format that SPUT supports on a Sound Blaster card in either direct or DMA mode. It also means that SPUT can now handle all the Creative Labs VOC file formats. . Added /SH switch to shell to DOS while playing files on the Sound Blaster in DMA mode. . Added optional SPUTARG environment variable to setup permanent switches for SPUT. Particularily useful for specifying Sound Blaster port and interrupt number (ie: SPUTARG=/p220s/ir7). . Changed /D switch (dedicated) to /DE. . Changed /Sn switch to /Dn (driver number). . Changed /U switch to /RE (resampling rate). . Fixed sometimes hanging while waiting for screen display to complete before starting playback. SPUTEM Event Monitor changes: . Added type T timer events. You can specify a date/time for the alarm and a repeat, along with an incremental date/time so SPUTEM will compute the next alarm setting. . Added ability to playback .ROL files to the Sound Blaster FM port and AdLib music card when an event occurs. ** Currently, you must have an ROL file player named PLAYROL.EXE in order to use this feature. Support for the .ROL file format will be incorporated into a future release of the SPUT Player Utility. . Added ability to play text to speech synthesis when an event occurs. ** Currently, you must have a text to speech conversion program named TRAN.EXE to use this feature. Support for text to speech synthesis will be incorporated into the next release of the SPUT Player Utility. ** Smooth Talker software by First Byte is also supported. . Added ability to run ANY program or batch file when an event occurs. . Added ability to perform playback in a separate DESQview window, and the /W switch to enable & disable this feature. . Added ability to start the DESQview player window in the background or foreground, and the /G switch to control this feature. . Added ability to initiate playback from the DOS prompt when an event occurs, and /C switch to enable & disable the feature. . Added use of custom fluttering bells to indicate error & retry conditions instead of using the dull old system beep. . Added optional number value to /B switch to set the frequency for playing bells on retries, or disable bells all together. . Added ability to enter multiple switches on the command line. . Added /M switch to allow events to trigger multiple playbacks. . Fixed problem where ansi escape sequence for clear screen was printed on the screen when ANSI.SYS wasn't loaded. . Fixed just about every possible way of crashing the system that existed. . And a bunch of other minor enhancements. SPUTTER File Manager changes: . Added ability to differentiate between digitized sound files for SPUT, text files for TRAN.EXE, and ROL files for PLAYROL, and invoke the correct player program automatically. . Added SPUTTRN environment variable to setup permanent switches for TRAN.EXE. . Changed the way the player tasks are started so it will work in a networking environment. . Setup screen colors instead of just using default colors, which is just white on black if ANSI.SYS not loaded. . Fixed wiping out menu & loosing startup directory on first PLAY command. . Fixed multiple PLAY commands with ARGUMENTS scrolling to the end of the file list and hanging the system. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER Sound System v1.09 changes: SPUT Player Utility changes: . Added /U switch to indicate new playback rate to use while rewriting the file with the /W switch. I'm really excited about this new feature. Now virtually ANY sound file can be played on ANY speed machine. If a file plays too slowly, it means that the playback rate is too high for the machine to handle. Resampling the file with the /U switch will allow you to lower the playback rate to something that your machine can handle more easily. . Added support for Sound Blaster .VOC 8-bit PCM format files. . Added optional values 1 and 2 to /Q switch, to set desired level of quiet. /Q or /Q1 disables all output, /Q2 will print error messages only. . Fixed incorrect time calculation for non 8-bit file formats. . Added trouble shooting section to documentation for SPUT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER Sound System v1.08 changes: Also, read CUSTOM.TXT for new reduced rates on custom digitized sound files. SPUT Player Utility changes: . Added code to adjust system time of day after playback completed. . Added format 21 for Digicorder 1-bit reverse CVSD format. . Added format 31 for Voice Toolkit .VOI 1-bit format. . Added /A switch to apply amplitude variations to sound files. This actually increases the volume of sound files. . Added /D switch for dedicated sound in a DESQview window. By default, background tasks will now continue to run. . Added /S switch to select an internal speaker driver. Four different methods of driving the internal speaker are available. Each is appropriate in a different situation. . Changed abort key from any key to the ESCAPE key only. This allows aborting playback without disturbing type-ahead. . Removed /X switch. This has functionally been replaced by the /S4 switch which uses the 8255 chip to drive the speaker. . Numbered all error messages so that an error-number can be returned to SPUTTER File Manager and SPUTEM Event Monitor. . Changed all SPUT console output from INT21 to INT10 calls. This prevents console output from crashing the system when called from the Event Monitor SPUTEM with /Q disabled. . Fixed crashing system when file was truncated because of insufficient memory. Too much of the file was being read. . Fixed playback to internal speaker causing DESQview to crash. This was caused by the interrupt method speaker driver (/S3). Three more speaker drivers are now available when in DESQview. . Fixed playback to internal speaker crashing slow systems. This was caused by the interrupt method speaker driver. Three other speaker drivers are now available for slower systems. . Fixed "divide overflow" when rates >238 were selected. Now all rates 1-255 are handled correctly. SPUTEM Event Monitor changes: . Added more specific error messages for definition file errors. . Added trigger & error counter fields to event table. . Added /S switch to display event table summary. . Added /I switch to reinitialize event table & counters. . Added /R switch to enable event playback retry. . Added code to catch remaining bell events via INT10 & INT29. . There were many different causes of system crashes in v1.07, that either hung the system or printed "divide overflow". Changes made to eliminate these problems were as follows: - Added code to check available memory before asking DOS to run the Player Utility SPUT. There appears to be a bug in the way DOS handles the case of insufficient memory. The first failed attempt returns an error code properly, but the second attempt hangs the system. - Rewrote the INT08 and INT21 interrupt handlers. - Added check for disk-I/O active before attempting playback. - Added check for when called from DOS so we don't reenter. - Switch to our own internal stack instead of using callers. - Save & restore DOS extended error information. - Save & restore PSP & DTA for current task before playback. - Changed all SPUTEM console output from INT21 to INT10 calls. SPUTTER File Manager changes: . Fixed DELETE prompt overwriting marked file count & menu box. . Added code to display error code from executed programs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPUTTER Sound System v1.07 changes: . It's here!! A new memory resident utility called SPUTEM (SPUT Event Monitor) to allow you to attach sound files to events on your PC. You can define which events you want to attach sound files to and what sound files should be played when the event occurs. The definitions are made in an ascii file. Events supported in this release are Program-execute, File Open (read-only), File Create, File Rename, File Delete, Beep, and a special event type to attach sound files to any INT13 or INT21 function. SPUT Playback UTility Changes: . Added /C switch for continous play. Most useful when trying to hear the sound quality of short sound clips. . Fixed incorrect upper case hexadecimal command line parsing. SPUTTER File Manager Changes: . Added VIEW function to view files in ascii hex mode. . Added display of Bytes-used at bottom of screen. . Changed MARK-ALL function from ^A key to ^K key. . Added ^A key for PLAY-ARGS function. . Added ^Z key for SORT-SIZE function. . Rearranged menu to group all sound related functions together. . Fixed GREY+ and GREY- keys not working properly. . Fixed file information messed up on screen after renaming a file. . Fixed wiping out menu & exiting to root instead of starting directory, the first time it was run. . Fixed ^P prompting for arguments when it shouldn't. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER v1.06 changes: . Added a new Point-and-Play full-screen interface with complete file management capabillities. From the File Manager, files can be played, viewed in waveform, copied, renamed, moved and deleted. The directory can be viewed in name, extension, size or date order. The new File Manager module is named SPUTTER. . Added a /I switch to SPUT, to display file information only without actually playing the file. . Added code to SPUT to pickup the playback rate from the header record of Covox .VMF format files. . Added code to SPUT to recognize ? on the command line as a plea for help, and print the help screen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER v1.05 changes: . Added random file selection capability using wildcards within filename. I added this because I got tired of hearing the same sounds every morning as my system booted up, and didn't feel like constantly changing the batch files either. Now my batch files just say "SPUT *.*/q" and I hear a different file each time. . Check for the case of the length of the sound data in the header record being incorrect. This only happens when the file has somehow been truncated, but caused SPUTTER to play beyond it's allocated memory. Now a warning message will be printed. . More documentation has been written, and a section for sources of sound files has been added. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER v1.04 changes: . Added support for Covox 1-bit ADPCM format files and the /F01 and /F81 switches. . Added support for Covox 2-bit ADPCM format files and the /F02 and /F82 switches. . Added support for Covox 3-bit ADPCM format files and the /F03 and /F83 switches. . Added support for Covox 4-bit ADPCM format files and the /F04 and /F84 switches. . Pickup playback speed and file format from the header record of Amiga 8SVX format files. . Identify Amiga/Sonix files and pickup playback speed from the header record. . When a key is struck during playback, only flush a single keystroke, instead of the entire keyboard buffer. . Fixed Internal Speaker playback routine sometimes not detecting end of file properly. . Fixed time calculation of encoded files still not correct. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER v1.03 changes: . Added support for 1-bit CVSD format files used by IBM. . Added /F11 switch for CVSD format files. . Added /W switch to redirect output to a disk file. . Added /H switch for high-pass filtering (Differentiator) . Added /L switch for low-pass filtering (Integrator) . Fixed replaying first part of buffer for files over 65535 bytes. (This problem was accidently re-introduced in v1.02) . Fixed printing of Macintosh title hanging system. (This problem was accidently introduced in v1.02) . Fixed Macintosh title printing even with /Q switch. . Fixed calculation of playback time for compressed files. . Removed Missed Sample messages. This was for debugging only, and was inadvertently left in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER v1.02 changes: . Added support for silence encoding. This is analagous to repeat character encoding known as RLE and can save a considerable amount of disk space without any noticable difference in sound quality. A soon to be released utility will allow you to rewrite any sound file with silence encoding. DEMO.V8S is an example of a silence encoded file. You can play it back with no switches for normal playback, or you can use the /F8 switch to hear just the non-silent passages. The little cracks you'll hear with the /F8 switch are the places where silence has been compressed into just a few bytes. . Added /F88 switch to support 8-bit PCM silence encoded files. . Added /N switch to generate noise inplace of dead silence when playing files with silence encoding. . Added display of total bytes output, and number of silence groups processed. . Added SPUTPOR environment variable to change the default output port without having to enter it on the command line. . Added SPUTDIR environment variable to define a default directory for sound files. . Added /Q switch to enable quiet mode, and not print any text on the screen. . Rewrote keyboard handling to be safer and more consistent. . Implemented a temporary solution for the problem of hanging when run under DESQview. It is now safe to run SPUTTER in DESQview. . Set limits on oversampling to avoid system lock-ups. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SPUTTER v1.01 Enhancements: . Added /P switch to allow selection of output device. (Internal Speaker, SpeechThing, VoiceMaster, SoundMaster) . Added /T switch to invoke treble enhancement. . Added /X switch to force SPUTTER to drive the Internal speaker using the DAC routine or vice-versa. This just produces another variation of playback. . Changed /F values to allow for expansion of support for additional file formats (1->8 2->28 3->38). . Just print a warning if file format is unrecognized, and continue with playback anyway. . Changed Macintosh oversample default from 2 to 1 just for consistency. SPUTTER v1.01 Bug Fixes: . Fixed the playback time calculation when oversampling is used. . Fixed incorrect parsing of hex port addresses. . Fixed problem of reading too few bytes into memory for files larger than 65535 bytes. This caused garbage to play in place of the end of the file. . Fixed problem of playing files larger than 65535 bytes that caused SPUTTER to play beyond the end of the buffer and then hang the system. . Fixed problem of overflowing buffer when reading a file into a buffer that's been truncated because of insufficient memory. SPUTTER v1.01 Known Bugs: Yes there really are two known bugs. The only reason I'm releasing this version of SPUTTER with 2 known problems, is that there are users waiting for fixes provided by this release. Both bugs are easily avoidable, but not so easily solvable. Both problems should be resolved in subsequent releases of SPUTTER. Problem 1: SPUTTER hangs the system when run in DESQview. So don't run it in DESQview until this problem is fixed. Problem 2: When too high a rate or oversample value is selected the system hangs. The limit seems to be around 220 samples per second on a 20mhz PC, but may vary on other systems depending on CPU speed. To help work around this for now, SPUTTER limits playback rate to 215 samples-per-second.