This is one of the areas where you and I have been butting heads for a while.
We have? I can't say I recall that.
We talk a different language.
Sorry ... but AFAIK (and with increasing certainty since I've recently compared the source code) the Squirrel HuCard audio player is a dissassembled-then-reassembled version of the Sytem Card audio player, with minor changes.
That's what TheOldMan has said (a few times, now), and that's what it *looks* like to me.
But you need to understand that dissassembly-into-source does *not* give you ownership rights over the code.
Please consider following his example rather than making statements that attempt to suggest that you're not using the System Card player. That may be true from a literal standpoint, but it's not true, from what I see, from a copyright/legal/honest standpoint.
I understand that this is how it works, and I am fully aware of the distinction. I kinda do this thing for a living, you know. We even have to go through the legal department all the time when doing things.
I am not trying to state otherwise. You just misunderstand me. Or we're all misunderstanding each other slightly.
When I hear "system card player", I assume "system card" or "IFU required", which isn't true in this case now.
I'm talking strictly from a hardware-required standpoint. System card / PSG BIOS to me implies you need a system card/CD dock/whatever. That is what *I* mean when I say it's not the same thing.
So when Tom mentions the system card player, I assume he too is talking about when you have the CD hardware/etc. present. He even mentioned ADPCM, which I assumed was the ADPCM RAM on the CD hardware. You can't use that if you don't have the CD dock, because it's not there, lol.
But, if true, then it does mean that you don't *own* the copyright to Squirrel's audio playback code ... just to your MIDI-to-MML converter utility that you ship in the Squirrel package.
Again ... there's nothing horribly wrong with that, and your tool that converts MIDI to the System Card MML format is a boon to the community.
But ... please be honest and attribute the creators as appropriate.
I am being honest. As I said, you're just misunderstanding me. I am talking about from a usability/requirements standpoint.
We have already stated on here, somewhere, probably repeatedly awhile ago, that it's simply recreated for HuCard so you can use it without having to make a CD game. I think that topic came up before you came around, actually. I've even stated this verbally to people who've asked at conventions. I don't know if Spenoza remembers, but I definitely told him once. Maybe Zeta too.
But, since it no longer requires the System card or CD hardware, it's not THAT one in terms of usability. We moved it. It wasn't straightforward, or easy, but we moved it. It's clearly the same thing though, since it accepts the exact same format. It was all created from... disassembly, develo book, Hu7 CD book, an oscilloscope, OldMan's excessive free time and curiosity....
This was not done to imply that we created some brand new player. It was done so when people make goobery little games like Reflectron or Cabbage's adventure game (that won an award IIRC), they aren't required to distribute pain-in-the-ass ISO images of them, which are then another pain-in-the-ass just to fire up in an emulator or whatever.
You can't jam em on a flash cart either. That was the driving force behind making the PSG player exist outside of the CD hardware. I don't recall us ever trying to take credit for any of that really outside of recreating and getting it to work.
That is also why Squirrel's manual's main focus is explaining MML, and how to make sounds come out, as opposed to rambling about the player stuff. Squirrel isn't really the player crap. Squirrel is literally the MML compiler. It existed *before* the HuCard version of the player. That's what was used for Insanity.
There was no HuCard player yet, but there was Squirrel.
The player crap is all tucked away and ignored because you are supposed to pretend it's still "built in". Nobody should have to look at, or touch any of it.
I'm not trying to pretend or be dishonest about anything. I am just saying, it's "not the system card one", because it doesn't require it anymore. It's been extracted so you don't need a System Card anymore. The big difference is that now, since the code is there and touchable, one could bastardize the flying shit out of it and make it no longer operate like the CD BIOS one, which could get hilarious and interesting.
The only ownership we really can claim is that "we moved it" so it's more useful to people.
The MML compiler is the important part anyways, because the player is 100% useless without it.
and most of this is a moot point since everyone's afraid of MML, lol. I just find it comical that people making games for 30 year old game consoles don't want to deal with it, but people playing a goofy free MMO called Mabinogi (read: 15 year old kids) are completely OK with using it to make songs for their characters to play in-game.
Kiiiiiiiinda goofy, I'd say.
Now, I think the big mixup comes from when you'd asked about tweaking squirrel to redistribute awhile back.
Maybe I/we misunderstood what you were asking with regards to that. We don't own any of that code, technically. All that was ever asked for if Squirrel as a whole is used is that you credit us, and if physical copies are made, mail us a copy. That's pretty common for these scenes. That's exactly how the licensing agreement is for the player I am using for MSX that my friend wrote.
We won't share the source for the compiler for Squirrel, but, we're already sharing the player code.
I guess it's OK to redistribute that and credit as such, noting whatever changes are made and by who to get it fudged into working again.
But, then we get into whatever license is used for HuC's distribution. Is it actually OK to distribute the player code around in that, or do we get into that weird dicey territory? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if, really, Hudson/NEC would come down on the whopping what, 6 people who would be partaking? lol.
At one point years ago, I fudged a drum sample. if you get a short enough wave, you can break it into a few 32byte segments as custom waveforms, and then switch them.
If you're talking about doing that at 60hz, that's only 1.9khz output. I can see that working for instruments with changing timbre, but that's not really what I meant by sample playback.
And you'd have a loud noise floor at 60hz (beating noise) because of the "pops" on the channel when you turn it on and off - unless you have an SGX or one of the core grafx systems that used the revision 6280a that doesn't have this problem. That DAC pop is annoying. The only way to cancel out the popping for something like that (on the non 6280a cpu's), is to use two channels. You alternate between updating two channels. The turning off of one, cancels out the turning on of the other - since the pop direction is in relation to the volume change on the channel. But you still need to update faster than 60hz to get to the original PCE 7khz timer method - something like 218hz updates.
The HuCard version sure as shit doesn't use the system card player, since the system card doesn't exist.
Ok. So if you added sample support for the hucard version - then what? Just not have it for the CD games?
I am talking about doing it with the regular waveform playback by bleeding notes together while changing the wave in use.
Not by enabling the actual sample mode. You don't get the same sonic capabilities as using the real sample playback, but you can still fudge some sounds. You won't really get that AirZonk dance beat "yeah *bang* yeah *bang*" 90s dance beat rap jam drum crap out of it, lol.
and yes, if sample playback were to be fudged into the HuCard player, it would only exist for HuCard projects, because we can't really modify the system card....
..... yet.
PS: I am starting a new thread about MML stuff here. I hope it's exciting.
