+wood_jl Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 (edited) When POKEY sings! Man, I dug this out of the archives. I remember listening to this stuff at a user's group meeting (Atari Computer Club of Anchorage) in the early 1980s. I was absolutely thrilled at what a show this AMS player puts on with the A8. Watching the keyboard is as fun as the square wave sounds! I think it's still awesome! I was wondering if there are any other similar AMS players or variations on this one. I like this, but I can't seem to get it to work with MyDos....hell, I can't even get it to work with DOS 2.5 for some damned reason. The on-screen keyboard was all distorted into trash on the bottom of the screen. Maybe because it's so old. I ran across another one "Magic Player" or something - that I think needs BASIC enabled. I didn't like it as much as this one. All the player programs have some screwy requirement like "song (file) must be locked" in order to play, or in the case of this one, NO file extension at all, and don't seem to like SpartaDos or other "fancy" dosses.. After screwing around for several mintues, I just went directly to ol' DOS 2.0s. I guess the point of fitting more songs on a double density (or greater) vitual floppy image is kind of moot nowdays....so it's another mouse click and tiny file on your mega-gig PC drive. Sadly, some songs aren't done well, or just don't sound good on the limited hardware. Some have several occurances of dischord, distortion, etc, or the volume just can't be attenuated to the proper level (I suspect; I'm no musician). The Cantina Band theme from Star Wars is probably the best you'll ever see (I mean hear!) because it's not only extremely well done, but the material is well suited to POKEY's square wave. It's totally awesome! I gathered up a few songs that ARE done pretty well and put them on a single density DOS 2 floppy with the player as AUTORUN. Give this a try and see of you remember the program. Disable BASIC. You won't have to screw with anything; there's no additional mouse clicking/virtual floppy swapping! Just press SELECT when it loads to bring up the directory on that disc, then arrow keys and RETURN to select. RESET brings back to the directory. Not many songs fit on a SD floppy with DOS! Songs are "The Entertainer" (Joplin), "Canon" (Pachabel's?), Cantina Band (Star Wars), Maple Leaf Rag (Joplin), 99 Red Baloons (can't remember - 80s Euro?), Country Roads (J. Denver), When I'm 64 (Beatles). Let's see if I can post the ATR as an attachment here..... [Disclaimer: I know your SID or ___________ sounds better. The retro sound of this has come full circle and is now cool, and 4 voices! so heh!] Well hell, you'll have to UNZIP it since the software here won't let me post a naked ATR! Sorry! AMS_SD_01.zip Edited April 8, 2009 by wood_jl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted April 8, 2009 Author Share Posted April 8, 2009 Oh, and it doesn't work with Atari800win 4.0. I'm disappointed. Who'd have thought this program was so demanding, when so much else works on the emulator? The screen is all ****ed up and you can see the colored piano keys animating in the garbage, and the sound is all crackly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwhyte Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Oh, and it doesn't work with Atari800win 4.0. I'm disappointed. Who'd have thought this program was so demanding, when so much else works on the emulator? The screen is all ****ed up and you can see the colored piano keys animating in the garbage, and the sound is all crackly. The screen is garbled on atari800 2.1.0, but at least there's sound... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 This one works on PLus: http://atari.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=3476 (and maybe someday some of them will appear in ASMA? ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Oh, and it doesn't work with Atari800win 4.0. I'm disappointed. Who'd have thought this program was so demanding, when so much else works on the emulator? The screen is all ****ed up and you can see the colored piano keys animating in the garbage, and the sound is all crackly. Seems to work with my emulator set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Today someone could make an AMS player that doesn't have the pitch problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted April 9, 2009 Author Share Posted April 9, 2009 bump! Anybody else have any interesting AMS tunes they'd like to contribute? I was really attempting to put together "the best" AMS stuff I could find. I'd really like to further this endeavor, and I'd (of course) post the ATR file(s) here! I think the songs on the disc I posted are quite good, and exercise POKEY's potential quite well. I understand I may be missing some. I know this is old hat to those of you who never left the Atari scene and likely have been in it since the dark ages. Nevertheless, I implore you to point me to some other fine AMS examples, as I'd like to build and share a collection of the finest AMS tunes there are. I find the animated keyboard and 4-voice 8-bit sound stimulating, both audibly and visually. Hope you're not too bored with it by now!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 bump! Anybody else have any interesting AMS tunes they'd like to contribute? I was really attempting to put together "the best" AMS stuff I could find. I'd really like to further this endeavor, and I'd (of course) post the ATR file(s) here! I think the songs on the disc I posted are quite good, and exercise POKEY's potential quite well. I understand I may be missing some. I know this is old hat to those of you who never left the Atari scene and likely have been in it since the dark ages. Nevertheless, I implore you to point me to some other fine AMS examples, as I'd like to build and share a collection of the finest AMS tunes there are. I find the animated keyboard and 4-voice 8-bit sound stimulating, both audibly and visually. Hope you're not too bored with it by now!!! Did you click up Miker's post that points to Fandal's site? It claims there are over 900 songs in the collection... BTW, I think they sound great also... and the piano makes it even better. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted September 11, 2023 Share Posted September 11, 2023 On 4/7/2009 at 7:09 PM, wood_jl said: UNZIP it since the software here won't let me post a naked ATR AMS SD 01.atr Since the forum now allows naked ATR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted September 11, 2023 Share Posted September 11, 2023 AMS01.ATR AMS02.ATR And a few more with a different piano and player. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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