Posted By
Csabo
on 2005-08-22
15:53:47
|  Underappreciated Software
Good topic: Underappreciated Software. We love our games and we talk about them a lot. This game is cool, that game has good graphics, etc. Now let's take a moment and talk about all the pieces of software that are underappreciated.
For some reason, these are mostly utilities.
Okay, here's an interesting one. In my in CD4, I wrote a little music using TED+digi. As it turns out, this may have been the very first native(!) TED+digi music on Plus/4. That's right, everything else we've heard before ('cause there definitely has been some) were converted. So... Why no native music with digi? This is where it gets interesting. Do me a favor. Go to Soundtracker. Download any one of the three cracks. In the programs, press ESC and then HELP. Voila, you can hear a nice demosong, with two TED voices plus a digi channel. And this is from 1989. Okay, Soundtracker suffers from chronic underdocumentation... And the darn thing is in Hungarian... But still, it seems to me that no-one ever actually used this piece of software, or if they did, they didn't create anything decent with it. Therefore it probably deserves the Most Underappreciated Piece Of Software Award.
Or does it? There are lots of others that really deserve some attention. If we had more time, we (meaning some volunteers from the community) could do a feature on one piece of software every week. I mean month. Well, who has the time... Thoughts?
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Posted By
Crown
on 2005-08-22
19:42:35
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Wow, I was actually looking for this software.
The reason for this is probably is that Soundtracker was not that widespread?
At least I only saw it once accidentally when I was at Novotrade demoing some stuff to them, and Boomby was there at the same time demoing Soundtracker to them.
I remember I was quite impressed with the digi quality, it almost sounded like an Amiga(obviously not, but close enough), they were actually using Amiga samples.
The closest I've heard was only Pigmy's 3 channel digi player (all channels are digi), which has not been released or used in anything, but it still sounded the best.
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Posted By
Rachy
on 2005-08-23
03:49:51
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Crown:I do remember that 3 channel digi player, it played Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal. It was the first player which used NTSC screen mode for higher processor speed. I was shocked when I heard it first time, it was really impressive. (I had it somewhere on my disks, but most of my disks are already damaged...  )
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2005-08-23
06:58:09
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Rachy, you are up for an award too... Adventure Building System = majorly underappreciated. You must have put a lot of effort into all the details. Did anyone ever actually build an adventure with it?
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Posted By
Rachy
on 2005-08-26
04:18:37
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Csabo: true...
I sold a few pieces for 250 Ft trough Commodore Világ adverts. And Nukeman gave me a Plus/4 for spreading rights of ABS...  (I paid 1600 Ft for the german translation of the user manual...) So afterall it was not a good business... At least I enjoyed the development.
I know only one guy who actually used it, but never seen the results. I was really suprised, because ABS could be used very easily to create a text based adventure game with illustrations. Maybe it came out too late, almost nobody was interested in text adventures any longer.
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Posted By
Chicken
on 2006-09-09
23:18:43
 | Re: Underappreciated Software
Another candidate is definitely (btw, this is "definately" the most frequently misspelled word ever, the google results are shocking :D ) APOS' Digital Composing Kit (and v2.0)
http://plus4world.com/sd.php?pid=13937
http://plus4world.com/sd.php?pid=13938
Being one of the most complex tools (codewise) on the plus/4, it went fairly unnoticed.
If you are interested in creating music using digitized instruments you should check it out!
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Posted By
Jay
on 2006-09-10
10:07:57
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Thanks for posting about both of these pieces of software, I have never seen them and look forward to experimenting with them. The mentioned lack of documentation might make this a bit trickier, but I'll have fun anyway!
Anyone know if there is a source of samples for Digital Composing Kit? Or even a C64 or PC tool for modifying sound files to work in +4 format?
Thanks, Jay
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Posted By
Chicken
on 2006-09-11
08:23:41
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Jay,
I'm not sure but I think one of the Composing Kits came with an additional disk including some digis to use.
It's been a while (and I don't have a plus/4 set up right now) since I used the program. I'm not sure what the max sampling frequeny is (that can be used in DCK). Sampling resolution is either 8bit (requires the digiblaster which is a SID card add-on) or 4bit. 8bit digis can be converted to 4bit "inside" DCK. I think APOS used some Amiga PC samples (taken from MODs).
I guess I need a real machine to clarify this. I'll keep you informed 
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Posted By
SVS
on 2006-09-11
09:10:50
 | Re: Underappreciated Software
mmmhhh... I know a bulk of "underappreciated software", mostly utilities and tools but, since they were written by me, you should speaking of them (I don't want to selfcelebrate myself).
I'm thinking every day more that, as NightBird says, often who writes for Plus4 is writing for himself
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Posted By
Chicken
on 2006-09-11
09:41:01
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Sad but true?! I remember that I was more than thrilled that some people actually used a tool I had written And that was back in the early 1990s when there were "many" plus/4 users around.
It's one of the things I want to do: Give feedback to the coders. With inet it's so easy... I guess I should register so I can at least vote for some programs.
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Posted By
Mike
on 2006-09-11
10:54:34
| Re: Underappreciated Software
Almost.... there weren't many of us for sure... I did get a character editor published in a Mag though
I remember the old gremlin games used to capture the softreset so you couldn't hack the game, but my old Plus4 didn't nuke the ram if you switched it on/off "really" quickly so I was able to get round it
All the ones I've gotten from ebay seem to nuke memory on as hardreset.
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Posted By
Chicken
on 2006-09-11
11:12:21
| Re: Underappreciated Software
I got an "almost static RAM" C16 and Resetter's plus/4 acted like that, too. You could switch it on/off REALLY SLOWLY... and still everything was there
But that's probably "underappreciated hardware"
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