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Modplay
ModPlay was the first Protracker Module player that supported the PC<br>speaker and soundcards other than the SoundBlaster. It let you<br>play Amiga soundtracker, noisetracker, and protracker module files<br>on a 10MHz 286 system or better. Modplay was written entirely in<br>assembler code, running to over 11,000 lines of source code taking<br>around 400 hours to produce. Modplay came with details and circuit<br>diagrams for building parallel port DAC devices, amplifiers, and more.<br>Although I didn't give out the source code, it was a completely freely distributable program.
Modplay v2.19b (101k)
Modplay v1.12 (10k)
The first coding on Modplay started on the 17th February 1991 and<br>in April 1991 the first public version, 1.12, was released.<br>Version 1.12 was pretty basic and didn't have an extensive user interface,<br>but it did manage to do a good job of playing most mod files through a<br>PC speaker or hardware attached to a parallel port.
Figure 1:
Users could move around directories and select which<br>module to play. In later versions it displayed more information<br>about a module and let you tag them in order to be played
Figure 2:<br>When playing,<br>a simple bar graph would appear showing the four channels and the<br>instruments being played
By September<br>1991 we were up to version 2.0 with a user interface and spectrum<br>analyser display. I coded the analyser whilst I was meant to be<br>studying for my degree, but it came in useful as a whole question on<br>fast fourier transforms came up as one of my final paper questions.
The final public release was 2.19b which had the addition<br>of a VGA graphical waveform viewer, configuration file support, and<br>the ability to play mod files in the background. A customized<br>version of ModPlay was also distributed with Covox soundcards in the USA,<br>until they went bust and with the Infocom game "Leather Goddesses of<br>Phobos II"
Infocom's Leather Goddesses manual<br>[JPG, 96k]
Figure 3:
A text based real spectrum analyser that could even keep up on<br>an old 286 processor
I still did some work on Modplay every now and again, and internally<br>I had version 2.49 released in August 1992 which had better handling of<br>the mod commands, conversion from a .com to a .exe (thats a big<br>internal change), and more configuration<br>file work. I also added a mode to dump a mod file to a stereo WAV<br>file so that I could convert mod files to listen to in my car CD<br>player.
Figure 4:
The main user interface. Text boxes would pop up to give<br>help or change output device
Figure 5:
When playing a file the bar graph looks similar to version 1.12<br>but with the addition of a scrolling music chart (like one of those<br>automatic pianos)
Figure 6:
You could load any GIF file and have it as the background whilst<br>watching the graphical waveform display, here each channel is<br>shown seperately
By 1992 sound cards had become cheaper, and Windows was getting<br>popular, so working on Modplay didn't make much sense. Many friends<br>spent time helping out with bits of Modplay, testing it, or making<br>suggestions; particular note goes to U4ia (Now called f8), whose mod<br>files inspired me and tested ModPlay to destruction, also Paul Sutton and<br>Phil Copeland who shared a student house with me whist all this was<br>going on.
Review from the "Soundblaster Book"<br>[ Page 1, JPG, 69k],<br>[ Page 2, JPG, 79k]
Module player, 1991-1992<br>Modplay was the first Protracker Module player that supported the PC<br>speaker and soundcards other than the SoundBlaster.
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Created: 01 Aug 1992