[Coco] Orchestra Master v1.1 for HDB-DOS and the DrivePak

Guillaume Major guillaume.major at gmail.com
Thu Dec 24 11:59:28 EST 2015


Hi cononuts!

I modified Orchestra Master to use the DSKCON routine instead of accessing 
the disk controller directly and I added support for HDB-DOS and the 
DrivePak.

For those who don't know, Orchestra Master is a public domain application 
written Dave Shewchun and Roland Knight to play Orchestra files over the 
normal TV speaker or through Speech Systems' Stereo Sound Pack. Since the 
original application was not using the DSKCON routine, it was incompatible 
with most of the floppy disks replacement solutions like Drivewire and the 
DrivePak.

The DIR command (D) was modified to allow the user to change the current 
drive and access any of the 256 disks of an HDB-DOS or DrivePak DOS 
partition. The syntax is:

D <num>   to change the current drive
D                to show the directory

All disk operations will occur on the current drive. Any drive specifier on 
the command line will be ignored. Ex. R JINGLE:1 A

Songs needs to be scored (compiled) before they can be played. After loading 
a song, type S to score it, and P to play it. You can also use the G command 
to load, score and play a song at once.

Here's a quick summary of the commands:

D                            to change/show directory
G <filename> A    to load an ASCII file, score and play music (.ASC 
extension by default)
G <filename>        to load an Orchestra Master file, score and play music 
(.MUS extension by default)
P                            to play music
R <filename> A    to load an ASCII file (.ASC extension by default)
R <filename>        to load an Orchestra Master file (.MUS extension by 
default)
S                            to score music (compile)

The version was bumped to 1.1 to differentiate it from the original version.

I've also made a Drivewire and a DrivePak version of the Orchestra songs 
collection found on the Color Computer archive. These songs are in ASCII 
format so the "A" option needs to be specified with the R or G command: R 
<filename> A. The extension can be omitted.

Disks 1 to 93 contains the whole collection from A to Z.
Disks 95, 96 and 97 contains a compilation of Christmas songs. Just in time 
for Christmas Eve!

It has been tested on a Coco 3 and a 64K Coco 2B with HDB-DOS for Drivewire, 
HDB-DOS for becker port and CocoNet 1.27.

Everything can be downloaded from the Color Computer archive. Here are the 
links:

Orchestra Master v1.1:
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Disks/Music/Orchestra%20Master%201.1%20for%20HDB-DOS%20&%20DrivePak%20(Public%20Domain).zip

Orchestra Songs collection (individual disks):
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Disks/Music/Orchestra%20Songs%20Collection.zip

Orchestra Songs collection for Drivewire:
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Disks/Music/Orchestra%20Songs%20Collection%20(Drivewire).zip

Orchestra Songs collection for the DrivePak:
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Disks/Music/Orchestra%20Songs%20Collection%20(DrivePak).zip

Orchestra Master v1.1 Patch source code:
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Programming/Source/Orchestra%20Master%20v1.1%20Patch/orch11src.zip

I hope you'll find this new version useful. Please let me know if you find 
any bug.

Enjoy and happy holidays!

Guillaume




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