by Richard F. Drushel (drushel@apk.net)
Last week, while backing up EOS volumes on my Mini Wini hard drive system, I rediscovered some songs that I had transcribed for VideoTunes. If you've been to any of the ADAMcons where Chris Braymen's (70057.2035@compuserve.com) ADAM Information Manager has been set up to display video advertizements with music, you may have heard some of these transcriptions: themes from The Flintstones and Dinosaurs!, Glenn Miller's A String of Pearls and Sunrise Serenade, and Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra signature tune Casa Loma Stomp. If you have a MIDI interface, you can use the program VTplayer to play VideoTunes songs to a MIDI device, or even save the songs as MIDI files (whence they can be edited in Sequel, a MIDI sequencer program). These songs I transcribed are available if anybody wants to have copies of them; just let me know.
I also found one unfinished song: Glenn Miller's In the Mood. I had transcribed the final zig-zag trumpet chorus and started on the introduction when I stopped working on it (1993?). Being "in the mood", I spent an hour or so finishing the intro and putting in one cycle of the "A" theme.
It's somewhat difficult to transcribe Big Band tunes with only 3 voices (which is all you get with ADAM's sound chip), because [music theory mode on] there are so many 6th chords (i.e., 1-3-5 triad plus the 6th; on your piano, play C-E-G-A simultaneously to hear a C6 chord). Four tones and three voices ... the solution is moving or "broken" chords in which, as the song progresses, you hear 3 of the 4 tones, but never the same 3 simultaneously. You ear performs some kind of "temporal summation" and you hear all 4 tones correctly.
Another difficulty in transcribing swing music is that VideoTunes has no provision for triplet or "swung" eighth notes. In a swing tune in 4/4 time (4 beats per measure, quarter note is 1 beat), written eighth notes aren't played evenly--the first eighth note of a beat is played at 2/3 the length of a beat, and the second eighth note is played at 1/3 the length of a beat. The closest that VideoTunes can get to this rhythm is with dotted eighth/sixteenth note pairs, but the result doesn't "swing"--it sort of lurches along. [trying to think of examples that everybody has heard] For "straight" eighths, think of a polka or a Sousa march; for "swung" eighths, think of In the Mood; and for the dotted eighth/sixteenth note approximation, think of any of Lawrence Welk's "champaigne music".
Chris Braymen is the professional musician among us; maybe I should ask *him* to take a stab at explaining this :-)
As I noted in a prior post to the mailing list, after a conference call with Herman Mason (aa337@po.cwru.edu) and Bob Slopsema (72117.3003@compuserve.com), I realized (to my chagrin) that the version of ADAMserve I released at ADAMcon VIII didn't include the specially-patched ADAMcalc and PowerPaint versions required for these popular/indispensible programs to work under ADAMserve. I thought it would be an easy task to put together some disk images based upon my own server hard drive volumes (i.e., keep the vital programs, delete personal images, debugging stuff, etc.).
Well, for PowerPaint I'm *almost* there. To prevent confusion with other versions of PowerPaint which are floating around (original, RLE-enhanced, hard-drive-compliant), I figured I should edit the boot screens and pictures so that it would be clear that it's ADAMserve PowerPaint which is booting. The boot screen I fixed; it has a nice ADAMserve message in it now. The boot picture will take a little work in PowerPaint (I want to have a picture of an ADAM and an IBM side-by-side), which I haven't used seriously since 1991 or so (when I made my SmartBASIC 1.x logo for the disk labels). If I get stuck, I'm sure I can always call upon our PowerPaint expert PJ Herrington (76537.1271@compuserve.com) for assistance.
As for ADAMcalc...I thought *this* was the one that would be simple and straightforward. When I booted it up (ostensibly to look to see if there was anyplace I could stick some kind of "ADAMserve version" message), I idly tried to load a stock spreadsheet from the server hard drive. STORE/GET, then press a SmartKey to pick a disk/tape, and ... uh-oh, the SmartKey for the server hard drive (DRIVE II) did *not* appear! The two server floppy drives (DISK I and DISK II) showed up, as did the tape drive (DRIVE I). Hmmm...the icons for both tape drives appeared correctly during the boot device detect routine. Rats, it worked before...in the *previous* version of ADAMserve...in the version *before* I made the alterations required to get FileManager to work. @#$%&#! Strangely enough, if I don't select a drive from the SmartKey menu and press Done, ADAMcalc will happily read from the server hard drive, load spreadsheets from it, save workspaces to it, everything it's supposed to except show up on the SmartKey menu as a valid device. Double @#$%&#!
I have not yet had time to dig into ADAMcalc to find the actual code that is operating during the drive select operation (after STORE/GET). Of the 36 blocks of ADAMcalc, I have disassembled only 5. ADAMcalc is another of those programs which is beautiful for a user to use but utterly repulsive when a programmer "looks under the hood". It's a different kind of "evil" than PowerPaint, for example. PowerPaint is ugly on the inside because the programmer, Sol Swift, didn't know any better; it has lots of empty, unused spaces and inefficient code. ADAMcalc is ugly on the inside because the programmers were *very* *good* and were trying to pack as much functionality as possible into a small space; they used every trick in the book to optimize for size. As a result, the code (in uncommented, disassembly form) is very terse and very hard to read.
In preparation for our monthly users group meeting, I desperately tried to finish cleaning/reorganizing my basement, so that as many of my computers as possible were set up and functional, and also that the remainder were stored neatly and accessibly. I did not entirely succeed by 2:00 PM Sunday 20 October 1996 :-( I have 5 complete computer systems installed on 4 desks/ tables (3 ADAMs, my 486DX2-66, and my PC-XT), with one ADAM and my rescued 286 laptop project (see TWWMCA 9609.30) still in storage. Unfortunately, the rest of everything else is haphazardly stashed into boxes, pending a more careful sorting-out. In partial defense, I had to repair a number of items as I uncovered them (e.g., my 80-column video unit had some bad solder joints; my 256K memory expander had a broken addresser cable). I also rescued/repaired a 1972 Shibaden black&white TV set that a lab at work was junking, for use as a monitor. (The picture was fine, but there was no sound, and the on-off plastic knob had been lost. The speaker was blown; a $3 Radio Shack special fixed that. As for the knob, I had one in my spares box.)
A few things that I *know* I had down here appear to be missing, some of which I had as part of my "ADAM Museum" at ADAMcon VIII. I hope they're just mislaid in the remaining clutter, or (possibly) got mixed up with some of Herman Mason's or George Koczwara's (aa436@po.cwru.edu) stuff at the convention. (Most of all our respective stuffs rode back from Elyria in my van.) I'll be really disgusted if I ended up leaving any of it at the convention :-(
This Sunday was the October meeting of our users group, B.A.S.I.C. (Best ADAM Support In Cleveland). In attendance were me, Herman Mason, George Koczwara, Pat Williams, and Jean Davies, plus my wife and kids at various points. Pat is supposed to be writing a summary of what went on at the meeting and mailing me a disk with the text. I even gave her a disk mailer :-) When I get the text, I'll post her report to the mailing list. After a little bit of wrangling with some balky hardware, we managed to have a productive meeting, with everybody having left by about 6:30 PM. During the meeting, I had a phone call from Michael Hurst (ao853@freenet.toronto.on.ca), who was having some difficulties trying to get the ADAMcon banner JPEGs I had put up for download. I was able to get to them without problems. Michael, try the URL as I listed it above and let me know what happens.
Telegames USA (http://www.telegames.com/) sells, in addition to new ColecoVision game cartridges (and cartridges and complete game systems for Sega, Nintendo, Atari, etc.) a *new* ColecoVision-compatible game machine called the DINA System. The info on their web page is sketchy (no pictures), but they say they redesigned the ColecoVision to have a sleeker box and smaller, Nintendo-style game controllers. It even has a built-in game called Meteor Shower. They say it will play any ColecoVision game cartridge which does *not* require a Super-Action Controller, a Roller Controller, or a Driving Module.
I requested (and received) the Telegames USA printed catalog. No pictures, just listings of game cartridges available for the many gaming systems they stock. The DINA System lists at $49.95. They sell genuine ColecoVision/ADAM game controllers at $19.95 each, and something called a QuickShot 3 Joystick for $29.95. I don't know if the DINA System (a) can accept a ColecoVision/ADAM game controller, or (b) if the $49.95 DINA System price includes game controllers, or (c) if the $29.95 QuickShot 3 Joystick *is* the game controller for the DINA System.
Telegames USA currently has a number of special offers (bundles of cartridges, freebies for X number of cartridges bought, X free cartridges if you buy a Y system unit). Two of interest are SPS03 (buy a DINA System and get a free Donkey Kong Jr. cartridge) and SPH03 (buy any 3 ColecoVision cartridges and get a free DINA System). I'm curious about this DINA System; I'm tempted to spring for one as a "museum acquisition" :-)
Note: I'm not affiliated in any way with Telegames USA. According to Norm Sippel's ColecoVision Home Page (http://www.infinet.com/~ngsippel/cv.html), Telegames USA is the current copyright holder for the ColecoVision hardware and many/most of the ColecoVision games.
Well, that's it for this week. See you next week!
*Rich*
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