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OK, thanks. I still have my old faithful 4Mb ST.

Aha ... so maybe you can answer a question for me ... how do you use these Desk Accessory (.acc) files ?

Thanks,

Daz.

Daz

Latest news ... I got some files from Clive in various flavours, that came from Atari based patch librarians such as GenEdit and Synthworks. Whilst some of them just appear to be the raw sysex with headers and trailers and possibly easily converted, some of them are not easy to read.

If you let me know which of the Atari editor/librarian formats seem odd, I'll see if I've got any relevant notes from when I was using them.

Clive

Thanks mate ... actually the Synthworks format was not as weird as it seemed ... it just appeared to be a header and then the sysex

There are two different formats used for the GenEdit/GenPatch stuff seemingly. Where the data is captured as a user dump (.US1) the data is the raw sysex with a header. For the files that (maybe?) used the GenEdit M1 template the data is stored in a slight different format, where the sysex has been de-sevenized (i.e. all the data has the encoding removed that stops any data from accidentally appearing as MIDI status bytes)

Any notes you have on the GenEdit/GenPatch and Synthworks formats would be welcome ! Thanks.

Daz.

Daz

I'll check if I've got any details about the GenEdi/GenPatch formats and get back to you.

Meanwhile, since Francois doesn't seem to be here at the moment to reply to your question about Atari accessories, here's a quick overview.

Accessories were loaded at boot time and had to be in the root directory of the boot disc. They would then show in the "Desk" menu. There was a limit to how many could be loaded - I can't remember how many, at the moment.

There were also accessories whose only purpose was to let you load other accessories later: I used one called MultiDesk and would generally have that loaded along with one or two that were particularly relevant to whatever software I was running. Since I (like most users) had no hard drive, I would have separate boot floppies for different applications, such as Cubase or a word processor, and the root directories would contain the accessories most appropriate to the task.

Accessories did a lot of things from quite mundane to really elaborate. One I liked and often used was a free one from Steinberg called Satellite which did various SysEx things.

The point of accessories came from the fact that you could only run one ordinary program (ie not an accessory) at once; accessories gave a partial way round that, especially the ones like MultiDesk. For instance, more than once I found that I couldn't save a Cubase sequence because there wasn't enough room on the floppy disks I was using - no hard drive. I was able to format a floppy via an accessory.

Clive

Besides what Chord told you, acccessories are a bit like the old Apple Menu in System 7 (remember this ?). You could place suitcases and various other items that could be accessed from the Apple.

BTW, my ST has a SCSI hard drive (external). An incredible 230Mb worth of space. Really HUGE !!!

Thanks guys ... this is a whole new world.

The only "old school" music computer I ever had back in those days was a s/h Yamaha CX-5M ... but as a guitarist I never really got into it and sold it

Daz.

Daz, how did you get copies of the old Notator and Cubase for Atari programs? If they are available anywhere, I would like to get them to play around with using the emulatorl.

Thanks,
Tom

Daz wrote:Any notes you have on the GenEdit/GenPatch and Synthworks formats would be welcome ! Thanks.Daz.

Daz

Below are all the details of M1/T1 file formats that I can come up with at present. I'm largely going by details taken from ("Fast Basic") programs that I wrote (~15 years ago) to read T1/M1 bank files, either to alter them or to generate lists of prog/combi names and cross-references, etc. So it's possible that there'll be small mistakes in my interpretation of some details.


STEINBERG'S SYNTHWORKS M1 (operates in two modes, M1 & T1)

There are at least two file types that you can ignore: ".LIB", containing multiple-banks and ".SND" containing single banks but not in SysEx format (bits 0-6 & bit 7 joined back together).

Synthworks ".TOS" files do contain data in SysEx format. This file extension denotes a program, and these banks are called "self-send" because they contain a program coupled with the SysEx - double-clicking on the file icon transmits the data. In T1 mode, I believe there are 28461 bytes before the start of the first program name, which is the start of the parameter data, but I suppose there'll be a few SysEx bytes immediately before that point. I don't know whether the M1-mode files are the same before the start of the SysEx.

Synthworks ".TTP" files will be either the same as or only a little different from ".TOS" files. ("TTP" stands for "TOS takes parameters" and this variant of the file allowed you to specify (eg) the MIDI port after double-clicking on the icon.)

Of course, numerous Atari program files also have the TOS and TTP extensions.


STEINBERG'S SATELLITE (an Atari "accessory")

This program included a "Universal Dump Utility" which could either send a request for a dump or just wait to receive whatever was sent (eg by key operations on the synth). In "wait" mode, it would, for instance, readily record the result of selecting several combinations one after another, leading to a file consisting of: four bytes; then SysEx header; then dump-type-parameter byte; then then EOX; then program change; then the next SySEx header, and so on.

Unfortunately, (as I recall) any dump file saved by Satellite had extension ".BNK", whether it was a hotch-potch like I just described or a straightforward dump created by sending an M1 or T1 dump request - or, of course, a DX7 dump request, or... . And unfortunately, other programs also used the ".BNK" extension - and though I can't say for certain, I expect their file formats weren't always the same.

Messy though this is, I suppose it does no harm to let a program approach any ".BNK" file as if it was an M1 or T1 dump of some kind. (I think there are always four bytes before the first SysEx header, but I presume the program would search for SOX & Korg ID.) Users with common sense would ordinarily only feed the right kind of file into the program, anyway.


HYBRID ARTS'S GENPATCH ST

I believe there are 61 bytes before the start of the first program name, which is the start of the parameter data. As I said about Synthworks files, I suppose there'll be a few SysEx bytes immediately before that point.


PANDORA TECHNOLOGY'S M1-ACCESSORY

Finally, I'm aware of this program but know nothing of its files except that the file extensions were:

M1B - 100 progs + 100 combis
M1P - 1 prog
M1C - 1 combi
M1K - 1 drumkit
M1F - 2 effects
M1G - 1 global
M1S - 1 sequencer dump


I hope this helps.


Clive

Tomcat wrote:Daz, how did you get copies of the old Notator and Cubase for Atari programs? If they are available anywhere, I would like to get them to play around with using the emulatorl.

Thanks,
Tom

Hi Tom,

I can't remember exactly where I found them ... but will happilly email them to you ... PM me with a good email address to send them to. The Cubase is Cubase Lite rather than the full version. The files are tiny

Daz.

Thanks Clive ... very useful information. From the C source code of GenEdit I've found some good information about it's format.

Thanks too for the tip on installing Desk Accessories ... that worked perfectly. I installed the Hybrid Art's SysXpress doodah and had some good success with converting the GenPatch and GenEdit flavoured files to raw sysex. Steem has a cool feature where you can direct all output to the Atari's MIDI port directly to a file on your Windows file system. So I sent a couple of those file you gave me to the MIDI port using SysXpress and they were dumped into a file on my Windows file system as raw sysex. Pending any changes to my code this might be a good way to convert stuff if you need to do it right now.

Daz.

Thanks, Daz! Man, those things are TINY!!!! Oh for the good old days when a very good program would fit on ONE floppy!

Tom

Tomcat wrote:Oh for the good old days when a very good program would fit on ONE floppy!

I still have Word on floppy for Mac SE and System 6.

No, I'm not speculating !

Daz wrote:... I had wondered whether the easiest way to convert these files [from Atari patch librarian s/w] was simply to run the software in the [Steem Atari ST] emulator and ask it to transmit the MIDI data and just capture it on the PC. You can assign any MIDI port on your PC to be the Atari's built in port ... so you could send data to MIDI Yoke and capture the results in MIDI OX for example.

I've now downloaded and installed the "Steem" Atari ST Emulator. I tried running Genpatch, but the original is on a copy-protected floppy; if the software doesn't find an original disk, it runs in a cut-down trial mode. I tried four different programs to create "disk images" from the floppy, but none was accepted by Genpatch as an original disk. So I wouldn't be able to use that particular program for the method suggested above - shame. Also, I've got five Steinberg Atari programs, including Synthworks M1, that all use dongles for copy protection, so of course they won't work either.

It's fascinating to see Steem running, although in my case I can still run Atari s/w because I've still got an ST permanently set up (with the addition of a hard drive a few years ago - suddenly the silent ST became noisy). So far, the only reasons I can think why I'd choose Steem over a real Atari are: (1) speed (not checked, but I believe Steem can be set to run many times as fast as a real ST); (2) the ability to use Windows Explorer to examine "ST" hard drives; and (3) correct timestamping of files without having to set the clock every time you turn the computer on - something I never bothered to do with real Ataris.