MIDAS Sound System v0.6.1, release notes ---------------------------------------- A Sahara Surfers production. Copyright 1996, 1997 Housemarque Inc. Written by Petteri Kangaslampi and Jarno Paananen (a.k.a. Alfred & Guru / S2) This file is part of the MIDAS Sound System, and may only be used, modified and distributed under the terms of the MIDAS Sound System license, LICENSE.TXT. By continuing to use, modify or distribute this file you indicate that you have read the license and understand and accept it fully. 1. Introduction and news ------------------------ This file accompanies the release of MIDAS Sound System v0.6.1. This release just fixes a few bugs since 0.6.0, and contains no new functionality. If you are developing software with MIDAS 0.6.0, we suggest that you upgrade, although no fatal bugs have been found. Delphi support has now been fixed, as well as some example program make scripts. 2. Brief introduction to MIDAS ------------------------------ So what is MIDAS Sound System anyway? In brief, MIDAS is a multichannel digital sound and music system, capable of playing an unlimited number of channels of digital sound on all supported platforms. It can play music modules, individual samples, and digital audio streams, in any combination. MIDAS supports the following module formats: - 4-channel Protracker modules plus 1-32-channel variants (.MOD) - 1-32 -channel Scream Tracker 3 modules (.S3M) - 2-32 -channel FastTracker 2 modules (.XM) Under Win32 and Linux, MIDAS plays sound through the system sound API, so all cards that have drivers installed are supported. Under DOS, MIDAS supports the following sound cards: - Creative Labs Sound Blaster series (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, Pro, 16) - Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum series (regular, Plus, 16) - Windows Sound System and compatible sound cards - Gravis Ultrasound (regular, max, PnP) This release of MIDAS can be used for free for free programs, and full source code is included. Licenses for commercial purposes are also available, contact "midas@housemarque.fi" for details. 3. What's New? -------------- Since the old 16-bit MIDAS 0.40a release, MIDAS has been rewritten almost completely. A few hightlights of the changes include: - MIDAS now supports 32-bit environments. 16-bit support is removed. - MIDAS now plays FastTracker 2 (XM) modules - All individual Module Players are removed, a single Generic Module Player takes care of all module playback - MIDAS has been ported to Win32 and Linux - A new DLL API is available, with documentation Fixes since MIDAS 0.6.0 include: - Fixed FastTracker 2 Sample Offset command - Fixed some crashes with S3Ms that contain invalid commands - Fixed Delphi interface unit 4. Supported platforms ---------------------- MIDAS supports the following platforms and compilers: - 32-bit MS-DOS under DOS/4GW, with Watcom C/C++ - Windows NT/95 with Watcom C/C++ - Windows NT/95 with Visual C/C++ - Windows NT/95 with Borland Delphi - Linux with GNU C/C++ In addition, under Win32 MIDAS can be used with any programming environment that supports DLLs. Direct examples are provided only for Watcom and Visual C and Borland Delphi though. Under Linux background and stream playing needs a pthreads compatible package, preferably the LinuxThreads-package available at: ftp://ftp.inria.fr/INRIA/Projects/cristal/Xavier.Leroy/linuxthreads.tar.gz 5. Using MIDAS -------------- Before trying to use MIDAS, make sure you read all documentation available in the "doc" directory. Most of the documents are included in three formats: LaTeX (*.tex), Postscript (*.ps) and HTML (separate directories). Postscript is recommended for printing and HTML for reading on the computer, if you do not have a HTML browser available you can read the LaTeX source directly. Unfortunately the documentation is incomplete, but the information there is should be very useful. After at least browsing through the documentation, you should check of the examples in the "samples" directory. The directory "samples/api" should be especially useful, as it contains several small programs that demonstrate the new MIDAS API. DOS programmer's should also check "samples/dos". "samples/midpnt" contains the source code for MIDAS Module Player for Windows NT, a slightly bigger and more complex program. Some of the examples might require a bit tweaking, depending your target system. In particular, you may need to edit a few lines at the beginning of the Makefiles in the directories. However, the code itself should compile cleanly on all supported platforms. When you are ready to use MIDAS in your own programs, it is probably useful to use one of the examples as a model. Remember that you are allowed to use MIDAS for free programs as is, but for commercial usage you will need to negotiate a license with us. In addition, your program HAS to include proper credits for MIDAS, either in the program itself or its documentation. This is even a requirement in the MIDAS license, and if you fail to include the credits you are breaking it. 6. Contact Information ---------------------- Comments? Bug reports? Want more information about MIDAS or MIDAS licensing? Contact us! E-mail is naturally preferred. For technical questions, contact Petteri Kangaslampi: E-Mail: pekangas@sci.fi (preferred) k153997@cs.tut.fi (slow, use as backup if scifi fails) Snail mail: (please don't) Petteri Kangaslampi Insinoorinkatu 60 A 49 FIN-33720 Tampere Finland Europe Phone: +358-3-3172204 (note the new area code) Linux-specific questions should go to Jarno Paananen: E-Mail: jpaana@iki.fi For MIDAS licensing information: E-Mail: midas@housemarque.fi The latest version is always available at our WWW site: "http://kalahari.ton.tut.fi/s2/midas.html". You can also find all MIDP versions there plus all latest MIDAS related news. In addition, there is a mailing list available. Send a mail to Petteri and request that you are added. The list is mainly intended for MIDAS-related announcements, but some discussion is possible as well. 7. Getting MIDAS ---------------- The best and fastest way to get MIDAS is the Internet. The latest MIDAS version is always at "http://kalahari.ton.tut.fi/s2/midas.html". In addition, you can find there the latest MIDAS news, MIDP releases, and general information. In addition, MIDAS is available at the following fine BBSes: Edge Of Delight Node 1: +32-2-3755651 Boca 28.8K (V34/VFAST) Node 2: +32-2-3758923 ZyXEL 19.2K (V32terbo) Node 3: +32-2-3721089 ISDN 64K (X75) Chaos Managers: Cobra, aCceSs & Fredy The Underworld BBS Node 1: +41-22-9600621 USR Courier V.34+, ISDN Analog Node 2: +41-22-9600622 USR Courier V.34+, ISDN Analog Node 3: +41-22-9600623 ZyXEL Elite 2864I 64kb ISDN, ISDN Digital Sysop: Synoptic WarmBoot BBS Node 1: +55-194-261993 Sysop: Warmbooter South of Heaven BBS Node 1: +1-916-567-1090 (2x28.8k) Sysop: Pantera Psycho Beaver BBS Node 1: +972-9-8320175 (2x28.8k) Sysop: riff raff Apologies for any boards we forgot - email us with your current information and you are back on the list. I have to confess I haven't kept very good track on our distribution sites, and now deliberately left out everybody I haven't heard from in a year or so... 8. Acknowledgements ------------------- There is no way we could have MIDAS what it is alone, and we feel we really owe a big "thank you" to the following people: Otto Chrons: Thanks for the sound cards, programming information, plus optimization and debugging hints. Teemu Kalvas: Thanks for some serious beta-testing, optimization ideas (still unused, maybe some day), and just general helpfulness. Jarno Heikkinen: Thanks for your support and the GUS PnP code. Wonder if it actually works? :) Carlos Hasan: Thanks for all your XM playing information Francois Baligant: One of the most supportive people I know. Nice meeting you at Wired'96, hopefully we'll meet this year too. Mikko Karvonen and Janne Oksanen: Thanks for composing all that wicked music :) And everybody who has sent us feedback on MIDAS - too numerous to mention, and all extremely important. Keep it coming! Plus some traditional hillos to our friends in the scene and beyond: #cokers - you know who you are Alik. Katainen J-P :) Kari-Pekka Koljonen Kraku Nemesis1 Statix Unreal The whole Virtual Visions team Everybody in Parallax Our friends in Prime All nice, intelligent and friendly people on #coders (there are some, right?) Byterapers CNCD Complex Paranoids Virtual Dreams And finally, thanks to all our friends, both real and virtual - thank you for being who you are, for doing what you do, the way you do. -- Petteri Kangaslampi & Jarno Paananen, 19 Feb 1997