Main Menu Press the letter key of the option to go to. <S> will take you to the <S>ongs menu, <C> to the <C>onfigure menu, <A> to the Add songs menu. <P> prints an order form and <X> exits the program. The Songs menu is where you select and listen to the built-in songs and install them into Telemate. The Configure menu is where you tell TMusic what directory Telemate is to be found in, and the directories for user-written song files, for BASIC programs, and for your text editor. Other options, such as the screen colors, can be set in the Configure menu. The Add Songs menu is where you edit, test, and install your user-written songs. The Songs menu is where you select and listen to the 34 built-in songs and install them into Telemate. Pressing <T> toggles whether to test (listen to) songs when you select them. If Test songs is ON, the song you select will be played for you when you press ENTER on it. Pressing <S> brings up the song list window. You can scroll up and down through the 34 songs with the up and down arrow keys, and jump to the beginning or end of the list with Home or End. Pressing ENTER on a song selects it (and if Test Songs is on, plays it). While a song is being played, you can press any key to stop playing. Once you have selected the song you want, you can press <ESC> to get out of the song list window. Pressing <I> installs the selected song in the Telemate TM.CFG file. If you get an error message when you try to install a song, you may not have specified the directory in which to find Telemate. Exit the Songs menu (press <Q>) and go to the Configure menu to set the directory for Telemate. The Configure menu sets the screen colors, the directories to find Telemate, song files, BASIC programs, and your text editor in, and whether to make a backup of Telemate's TM.CFG file. <N> and <H> set the Normal and Highlighted text colors. When youselect either of these, you will see a grid of colors, backgroundcolors horizonal and foreground colors vertical. Use the arrow keys to select the color combination you want and press <Enter>. If you don't want to change the colors, press <Esc>. <T> sets the directory in which to look for TM.CFG, Telemate's configuration file. If this is not set correctly, the Songs menuwill be unable to Install songs without error messages. Press <T> and type the name of the directory where you keep Telemate, e.g. C:\COMM\ or D:\TELEMATE\ or C:\TM\ You don't need to set this if you have TMusic in the same directory as Telemate. If you have it in a subdirectory immediately below Telemate (e.g. Telemate is in C:\COMM\ and TMusic is in C:\COMM\TMUSIC\ ) then you can specify the Telemate directory as ..\ (two periods), that is, the directory above the current one. The drive is optional if TMusic is on the same drive as Telemate (i.e. \TELEMATE\ is as good as C:\TELEMATE\ ). <D> sets the directory in which to find your user-written song files. The same remarks apply to it as to the Telemate directory. <E> sets the drive, path and filename of your text editor. The default is the DOS 5.0 text editor, EDIT, is used. If you have an older version of DOS, you may have to use EDLIN. I strongly suggest you get a better text editor. <P> sets the directory in which to find BASIC programs for importing them into TMusic song file format. The same remarks apply to it as to the other directory names. <M>ake backup or not? If this option is Yes, then before it installs a song, TMusic will make a copy of TM.CFG as TM-CFG.OLD. (If TM-CFG.OLD already exists it will not be created.) When you have set all the options as you want them, you can press<S> to save the options in the TMUSIC.CFG file. Add Songs Menu <F> selects the directory in which to find your user-written songfiles. It works the same way as the option on the Configure menu. The <T>ext editor command line and <D>irectory for BASIC programsare explained more fully under the Configure menu. <S> selects the user-written song file to edit. This is an ASCIItext file containing music commands. For information on how to use the music commands, see the next section, "Writing your own songs." When you press S the cursor will appear in the song file[ ] brackets. You can type the name of the file to edit here(you must do so if this is a new file and doesn't yet exist), or you can press <TAB> to load the song files directory. The directory window will appear and the first file in the directory will be highlighted. You can use the up and down arrowkeys, PageUp and PageDown, Home and End to scroll through the directory listing. Pressing a letter key will jump to the next file or directory whose name begins with that letter. Pressing <ENTER> on a file will select that as the song file to edit, playor install; pressing <ENTER> on a directory (marked as <DIR>) will load that directory to view. To change drives, you can press <TAB> again and the cursor will appear in the top part of the directory window for you to type the drive and/or directory name there. To get out of the directory window, you can press <ESC> or press <ENTER> with the highlight bar on the file you want to select. <E> shells out of TMusic to your text editor to edit the selectedsong file. You must have already specified both the text editor command line and the song file. <P> plays and tests the selected song file. If any errors are found in the song file, a message will say so and the bad commandwill remain highlighted. <B> imports from a BASIC program containing PLAY statements and writes the music commands to the selected song file. You must first have selected a song file to edit. This option loads the directory and you can scroll through the directory window and select the program you want to import. For details on using the directory window, see above under the <S>elect song option. <U>se comments in conversion? If this option is Yes, when a BASIC program is imported to a song file, all REM, ', and PRINT statements will be sent to the song file as comments ( ' ). If it is No, only the PLAY statements in the BASIC program will be processed. Only PRINT commands followed by literals (PRINT "strings in quotes") will be sent as comments; those followed by variables (PRINT VARIABLE$) or formulas (PRINT MID$(VARIABLE$, 3,5)) will not be processed. <I> installs the selected song file into Telemate. You must havealready selected a song file (see <S> above). Writing your own songs To write your own songs to install them in Telemate, you will need to create and edit an ASCII text file containing music commands. It can also contain comments. The music commands are,with a few exceptions, those used by the BASIC PLAY command and the ANSI music standard. C, D, E, F, G, A, and B -- Play a note. # or + -- coming after a note command, e.g. C+ or C#, plays the note sharp. E and B *cannot* be played sharp. - -- coming after a note command, e.g. E- , plays the note flat. C and F *cannot* be played flat. . -- coming after a note command, e.g. C. , plays the note for half-again as long as otherwise. N -- followed by a number 0 to 84, plays a numbered note on a chromatic (12-tone) scale, where 25 is middle C, 26 is C sharp, 27 is D, and so on. 1 is the lowest note, 84 the highest; 0 is arest (pause). N commands can be followed with . but not #, + or -. O commands do not affect N commands. O -- followed by a number 0 to 6, specifies in what Octave to play the following notes. The octave with middle C is 3. > -- goes up one octave. < -- goes down one octave. L -- followed by a number 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64, tells what Length to play the following notes. L8 says to play eighth notes, L2 to play half notes, L1 whole notes, etc. A single notecommand can also be followed with any of those numbers, e.g. C4 plays a fourth-note C. In "L4 CC F2", the two C's would be played as fourth notes, the F as a half note. P -- followed by a number 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64, pauses for that fraction of a second, e.g. P1 pauses for 1 second, P8 for aneighth of a second, etc. T -- followed by a number 32 to 255, sets the Tempo (speed). 32 is slowest and 255 fastest. For most songs the appropriate tempois around 100-120. ML -- Plays the following notes Legato, i.e., all run together with no slightest pause between notes. MS -- Plays the following notes Staccato, i.e., with longer pauses between each note so each one is heard more distinctly. MN -- Plays following notes Normal, with a shorter pause between notes than Staccato. The comment command is unique to TMusic: ' -- comment. Anything following a ' in a TMusic song file will be ignored by TMusic when it plays or installs the song. Use this to include the words to the song for your own reference, andto begin the song file with the name of the song. Error messages These error messages should be pretty obvious: You must specify the song filename. File not found File already exists Disk full Disk is write protected Disk not ready Unformatted or possible non-DOS disk Directory not found Printer not ready These might require a bit of explanation: Invalid file name -- You used illegal characters in the filename or directory name, such as +<>/\*? and some others. Try again with a different filename. Possible read-only file -- Use the DOS ATTRIB command or the Norton Utilities FA command (see the respective manuals for details) to check if it is read-only. If it isn't, I don't know what the problem is; read-only files are only one of the problems that can cause this error code, which is actually called a "Path/File Access error." You must specify a text editor to use. -- To specify the editor, use the <T> command on the Add Songs menu or the <E> command on the Configure menu. Be sure to <S>ave the configuration after you type the editor name, etc. FILENAME exists; <O>verwrite, write to <E>nd, <C>ancel? -- Used when importing a BASIC program to a song file, and the specified song file already exists. Unless you are quite sure you want to erase what is already in the song file, type E or C. Bad music command: -- Followed by a line of music commands, with the bad one hilighted. This can be caused by: a T, O, L or N command with no number after it; an invalid command such as X, R, J, etc. or &, ^, etc.; a number out of place, e.g. at the beginning of a line or after a > or <. Go back and edit the song file to remove or correct the offending command, and try again. Error # nn -- Oops! This means a bug I didn't catch before I released TMusic. Please write or send me e-mail to let me know what error number you got, and under what circumstances. (See below under "Getting in touch with the author".) [end of online help] should be preDisk not ready Unformatted or possible non-DOS disk song filenameDirectory not found Printer not ready These might require a bit of explanation: ed Invalid file name -- You used illegal characters in the filename le non-DOS di or directory name, such as +<>/\*? and some others. Try again with a different filename. Possible read-only file -- Use the DOS ATTRIB command or the bit of expla Norton Utilities FA command (see the respective manuals for details) to check if it is read-only. If it isn't, IYou used ille don't know what the problem is; read-only files are only name, such as one of the problems that can cause this error code, whichdifferent fil is actually called a "Path/File Access error." le -- Use theYou must specify a text editor to use. -- To specify the editor, iesFW use the <T> command on the Add Songs menu or the <E> 7C command on the Configure menu. Be sure to <S>ave the K STACVO configuration after you type the editor name, etc. _SB RàFQ 7 ORFILENAME exists; <O>verwrite, write to <E>nd, <C>ancel? -- Used TH when importing a BASIC program to a song file, and the ¼c¢µ╚ specified song file already exists. Unless you are quiteommand on the sure you want to erase what is already in the song file, e Configure m type E or C. after you ty Bad music command: -- Followed by a line of music commands, with erwrite, writ the bad one hilighted. This can be caused by: a T, O, L g a BASIC pro or N command with no number after it; an invalid command g file alread such as X, R, J, etc. or &, ^, etc.; a number out of ELPINFOTXT place, e.g. at the beginning of a line or after a > or d 3 <. Go back and edit the song file to remove or correct ê TRENELLIFW the offending command, and try again. té B á╗ σIBRARError # nn -- Oops! This means a bug I didn't catch before I TFW2 released TMusic. Please write or send me e-mail to let J, etc. or & me know what error number you got, and under what t the beginni circumstances. (See below under "Getting in touch with nd edit the s the author".) command, and [end of online help]
