MUSICOMM (modem music from BBS's)

[+DarkLord]

Okay, way back when, when DarkForce! was still a dial up board, we had an option from the Mainmenu

to play music from the BBS. It was called "Modem Music" (my pet name for it) and used the MUSICOMM.ACC

on the caller's Atari ST or compatible computer to receive the file (which, from my understanding is basically

a MIDI file?) and play it there.

 

For the longest time, I remembered this as using the speaker on a Hayes compatible modem to actually play

the file. Well, I was in a message thread the other day at AtariAge (the 8bit BBS section IIRC) and music from

BBS's came up and I mentioned Musicomm.

 

So...for some strange reason I decided to go back and check the folder and it's files. I rarely delete things for

the BBS, even if I no longer use them. MUSICOMM was still there, with it's app, ACC, script files, menu files, etc.

SO...I actually read the docs. You know how this is, you get something and many times we'll only read just

*enough* to get it working. Apparently, that was the case here. Two things immediately leapt off the page,

and began slapping me silly. One, the docs say the sound is played through the ST's speaker, not the speaker

of the modem. 

 

I distinctly remember trying MUSICOMM after we switched to telnet and it no longer working. So...I must have

had my SC1224's sound turned all the way down? I really don't know.

 

The second thing was, you can start the app (it's a .TTP file) with the switch /local so that it *BYPASSES* the

modem check.  I think this is the key part here.

 

I added /local to the script file that pulls up each sound file and, holy freakin' crap! it worked.

 

So...you must have an Atari ST compatible computer, you must have the MUSICOMM.ACC file installed and

you must be using a comms program that leaves you access to your ACC's. I put STalker 3 on my Mega STe

and it worked fine. I'm kind of annoyed that TAZ, which takes over the whole screen, won't give me access

to ACC's. I'm sure it's going to be like that with some other comm programs as well. So anyway...please try

it out and let me know if there are any problems. I'll file it under "trial period" until I make sure it's glitch free.

 

I'm attaching the MUSICOMM accessory here.

 

Thanks!

 

MUSICOMM.ZIP