Sound Fx/Sound Fx.iso/Software/ZIPED/FCD301.EXE/GENH_ENG.DMS

Text File | 1997-01-11 | 18KB | 404 lines

~Help Index
About Sound Design Systems
Author
Being A Distribution Site
DMF Compiler
Dynamic Message Files
Keyboard speedup
Sound Design Systems Vision
SSD Vision, Mouse
Strings
Technical Information
Thanks and Messages
TROUBLESHOOTING!
Full Help

~Help item 0
--not used--

~Help item: About Sound Design Systems
                             Sound Design Systems
                             Official Information
                                 Version 1.00
                              (January 11, 1997)

Sound Design Systems is a software company, that makes sound-related
utilities.

\FHistory\B
\E1993 September\B The foundation of MegaSoft, which was the original name of
               Sound Design Systems.
\E1994 February\B The creation of the utility pack called MegaUtils was started
              which contained a very large scale of utilities (everything
              from sound to graphics related).
\E1996 March\B FastCD 2.18 beta was released on Chip CD 1996 March.
\E1996 April\B The MegaSoft name was changed to Sound Design Systems and stopped
           the working on MegaUtils and started the creation of SSD Sound
           Studio that is a sound/music related program package.
\E1996 June\B The creation of Silicium Player was started.
\E1996 October\B The Slovak Antivirus Center became the first official
           distribution site.
\E1996 November\B Silicium Player and FastCD were officially released on the
           Chip CD 1996 November.
\E1997 January\B The first release of the 97 versions.

The current memberlist of SSD:

    \FSentinel of Sound Design Systems:
    \EPeter Visontay:\B \9Programmer\B
    H-1118 Budapest, Torbágy u. 10. III. 10. (Hungary)
    (+36) ([phone]
    (+36) ([phone]
    [e-mail] (September-June)

    Please add the header "Peter Visontay" to the letter if you are
    sending e-mail.

\F ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
\F │                              ABOUT SSD PRODUCTS                            │
\F └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

1) All Sound Design Systems products have been \Evirus checked\B with the
   newest virus checkers and they have a \9Self-CRC checker\B.

   \EORIGINAL SSD RELEASES ARE GUARANTEED TO BE VIRUS FREE!\B
   IF YOU FIND AN SSD PROGRAM WHICH CONTAINS ANY VIRUS, THAT MEANS THAT
   IT IS NOT AN ORIGINAL RELEASE, IT HAS BEEN MODIFIED! IF YOU ENCOUNTER
   A MODIFIED SSD PROGRAM, PLEASE \CSEND ME A COPY\B WITH THE NAME OF THE PLACE
   WHERE YOU GOT IT (BBS, INTERNET OR SHAREWARE CD) AND THEN \CDELETE IT\B
   \CIMMEDIATELY!!!\B

2) All SSD products are \Ecompressed\B with \9PKZIP\B. If you find an SSD product
   packed with any other compressors, please do the things that should be
   done if a virus is found (see first item of list).

3) SSD products are compatible with \9Windows\B, \9Windows 95\B and \9OS/2\B in
   full-screen mode.

4) Please give \EShareware\B version of the SSD products to all your \Efriends\B!

5) If you want your BBS to be a \Edistribution site\B of SSD products, read
   \9DISTSITE.TXT\B.

\F ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
\F │                  MUSICIANS AND GRAPHICS ARTISTS WANTED!                    │
\F └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

I am looking for \Egraphics artists\B and \Emusicians\B who think that they
could draw/compose for adventure \Egames\B in their free time. I'd like to
release some cool games, but I do not have gfx and musicmen, what makes the
game creation VERY-VERY difficult... So \EI am waiting for your reply\B, if you
think that you are a good composer/graphician. What I am expecting:

\FGraphician\B
\EBackgrounds\B Background pictures (as in any other adventures).
\ESprites\B Many sprite forms, and sprite phases (characters, objects).
\EAnimations\B Sprite animations, \CNOT\B hyper-realistic 3-D 1280x1024 marvelous
           raytrace 50 frames/sec animations!

Notes:
- The pictures can be ANY style (I prefer medieval and horror style, but they
  can either be sci-fi or new-age!), the story of the game is not fixed yet.
- The pictures can either be drawn on computer or scanned.
- The best resolution is 640x480, but 320x200 is good as well.

\FMusician\B
\EModules\B Any type of modules (MOD, S3M, ULT etc.).
        \CMIDI-S ARE NOT ACCEPTED!\B (MID, CMF, XMI etc.)!

Notes:
- All music styles are accepted EXCEPT techno, rap, acid and other new-style
  music styles (sci-fi is good!), since they do not fit into an adventure
  game (if I decide to make an other game, they can be possible, too). The
  best styles are medieval, horror and rock, but others are good as well.
  The style of the game is not fixed yet, so I cannot tell the exact style
  now, but I hope it will turn out soon.
- The minimum channel number of musics is four, but the optimal is eight
  or more.
- Sound effect making ability is not necessary, but it is very good.

If you want to \Ejoin me\B, do the followings:
- If you are a graphician, send me \Eten\B or more of your \Epictures\B, or if you
  are a musician send me \Efive\B or more \Emodules\B.
- Attach your \Efull address\B to your works.
   - OR -
- \ECall!\B

Note:
- I prefer adventure games, but this \Edoes not mean\B that I would not make
  \Eother\B types of games. If someone has a good idea, please contact me!

\F ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
\F │                Do not forget: I am waiting for your reply!                 │
\F └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

~Help item: Author
SSD Sound Studio has been designed and written by \ESentinel\B \E(Peter Visontay)\B.

If you have \Eproblems\B, \Equestions\B or \Esuggestions\B about the program,
please contact me!

What I mean under...

\EProblems\B Any problems occurred while using SSD products (non-working
         functions, bugs, etc.).
\EQuestions\B Any questions about SSD products and SSD (release list, etc.).
\ESuggestions\B Any functions that are missing from SSD products ideas of
                new programs.

\EPeter Visontay\B
\EH-1118 Budapest, Torbágy u. 10. III. 10. (Hungary)\B
\ETelephone: (+36) ([phone] or\B
\E           (+36) ([phone]\B
\EE-Mail:    [e-mail] (September-June)

Please add the header "Peter Visontay" to the letter if you are
sending e-mail.

If you are a graphician or musician and want to join me, see \ESSD.TXT\B or
help item \EAbout Sound Design Systems\B.

~Help item: Being A Distribution Site

To get information on being a Distribution Site of SSD, please read
\EDISTSITE.TXT\B.

~Help item: DMF Compiler
DMFCOMP compiles the \EDynamic Message Sources\B (\EDMS\B) to
\EDynamic Message Files\B (\EDMF\B).

The \Esyntax\B of DMFCOMP:
    DMFCOMP[.EXE] dmsfile

The \Edmsfile\B is the DMS file. The output file will have the same name with
\EDMF\B extension.

See also: Dynamic Message Files.

~Help item: Dynamic Message Files
The Dynamic Message Files (DMF) contain the \Emessages\B of a program in a
specified \Elanguage\B. If a program uses DMF technique, its messages are not
stored in the EXE, but in a separate file (DMF). If the programmer wants to
create an other language version of the program, just writes a DMF in that
language, and the program will know that language \Etoo\B. First, the DMF-s
have to be written in the \EDynamic Message Source\B (\EDMS\B) form, and then
compiled to DMF-s with the DMF compiler (\EDMFCOMP.EXE\B).

The structure of the DMF-s:
\E@01=Name of the program
\E@02=Language (in English)
\E@03=Language (in the DMF's language)
\E@04=Copyright
\E~~Identifier
\EText 1

\E~~Identifier
\EText 1
\EText 2
\EText 3
\E...

Description of the fields:
- Name of the program: name of the program whose the DMF is.
- Language (in English): the language of the DMF in English (e.g. \EGerman\B,
  if the DMF is German).
- Language (in the DMF's language): the language of the DMF in the DMF's
  language (e.g. \EDeutsch\B, if the DMF is German).
- Copyright: the DMF writer's copyright (e.g. \ECopyright 1993-96 by
  \ESSD\B.)

The identifier shows the compiler that which message will be the next. The
compiler writes the identifier to a file with INC (Include) extension. This
is important at two times: first, if the program whose the DMF is, is not yet
compiled to EXE. This time the program compiler reads the identifiers of the
messages from the include file. Second, if you are creating two or more DMF-s
for a program, you can accidentally leave out a message from one of the DMF-s.
This is not easy to recognize, so we can recommend to compare the different
language includes after compiling DMS-es to DMF-s, so check if they have the
same content. If not, that means you left out one or more messages from one
of the DMF-s. There is always a tilde (~) before the identifiers.

The text lines: there have to be one or more text lines after each
identifier containing the text of the message. In most cases there is only
one line, but sometimes you may need more lines, where it is difficult to
give all lines an identifier and read the lines from the DMF by the ID - e.g.
in a help, where can be hundreds of lines. In this case just write more lines
after the identifier, and the program will read as many lines from the DMF
and write to screen as there are (if it supports the more-line read at that
identifier).

Format of the texts:
- Texts without variables: If you simply write a text into the DMF, then the
  program will write that text to screen.
- One-variable texts: You may often need texts with \Evariables\B, where the
  variable is a string (which is not always the same) which the program
  inserts into the original text. For example the \ENow it's 20 o'clock\B
  sentence, where the \E20\B is not a built-in text, but always the current hour.
  In this case you have to write the following line into the DMS:
  \ENow it's %s o'clock\B. The program will change the \E%s\B to the hour. And
  if you create for example a Hungarian DMF for this program, you have to
  write this into that: \EMost %s óra van\B.
- Multi-variable texts: of course it can occur that you have to insert more
  strings into a text. In this case, you have to write more \E%s\B's into the
  text and write a number after each. This is important, because if you
  want to create a DMF in several languages, and the word order in the
  languages varies, the inserted strings will be confused. But if you number
  the insertion points, the program will insert the texts correctly.
  For example: English - \EThe %s1. element of the %s2 items in the list\B.
  Hungarian - \EA lista %s2 elemébôl a %s1\B. This shows that the numbering is
  very important.

Plural forms:
- Due to the very big difference between languages, if you are writing a
  program that uses singular/plural forms of words, you have to write the
  singular and the plural forms \Eseparately\B. For example:

English: One car. Two cars.
Hungarian: Egy autó. Két autó. (!)
Italian: Una macchina. Due macchine.

As you see, the laws of plural forms differ in all the three languages,
so you have to create two items in the DMS:

\9    English              Hungarian            Italian
\9 ~Singular "car"      ~Singular "car"      ~Singular "car"
\9 car                  autó                 macchina
\9
\9 ~Plural "car"        ~Plural "car"        ~Plural "car"
\9 cars                 autó                 macchine

~Help item: Keyboard speedup
When SSD products are started, they set the keyboard speed to the fastest:
Typematic delay = \E250ms\B
Typematic rate  = \E32 chars/sec\B

If you do not want to speed keyboard up, use the \E/NOFAST\B parameter.

~Help item: Sound Design Systems Vision
SSD Vision is a graphics environment written by Peter Visontay.

Some technical information:
- Requires a \EVESA-compatible\B video card with minimum \E512K\B of video memory.
- Works with all \EVESA-emulation\B programs, for example with UNIVESA and UNIVBE.
- Can handle \Eall VESA modes\B with 256 or more colors (default is 640x480
  with 256 colors)
- Capable to handle \Ewindows\B, \Emenus\B, \Etexts\B, \Epalettes\B, \Epercent bars\B and more
  with a lot of effects: text effects (e.g. texts with shadow), unlimited
  number of \Eloadable fonts\B, \Epalette animations\B (crossfade, fade in/out four
  ways), etc.
- Does \Enot\B use the \EBGI\B-s (Borland Graphics Interface - that is the
  Turbo Pascal's and C's graphics library), it is fully independent.
- Has an \Eergonomic desktop\B.

\Eand more!\B

~Help item: SSD Vision, Mouse
Sound Design Systems Vision handles mouse if a 100% Microsoft compatible mouse
driver is installed. SSD products have been developed using a 3-button Genius
mouse connected on COM1. I used a Genius 9.06 driver.

Recommended mouse drivers: Microsoft, Genius, Logitech.

~Help item: Strings
A string is a sequence of characters.
For example: \Eabc\B, \ESound Design Systems\B, or either \Ewei24'tcp23x3asawe246

In SSD products, there is a capability of \Ecolor strings\B. This is made thus:
Where you want to change the color of the text, insert a backslash (\E\\B) and
a hexadecimal number from \E0 to F\B (decimal: \E0 to 15\B). If you want to use
a text that contains a backslash, insert \Etwo\B backslashes to the text: \E\\\B.

~Help item: Technical information
The program has been developed on the following computer:

Pentium 100MHz, 32M RAM, 2.45G HDD, 15" Axion LR NI, S3 Trio 64V+ (2M, MPEG),
Gravis UltraSound PnP, 6x Sony CD-ROM, Genius ScanMate Deluxe 16.7M Scanner.

The following software have been used for the development:
- \ETurbo Pascal 6.0\B
- \EZSoft PhotoFinish 3.0\B

The following source codes & others have been used:
- Low-level PD \EVESA unit\B from magazine Alaplap
- Low-level PD \ECD unit\B from Internet (creator is unknown)
- \EFonts\B from a freeware font collection from Internet

If you have \Cproblems\B, \Equestions\B or \Esuggestions\B, please contact the creator.
(See in help topic \EAuthor\B)

~Help item: Thanks and Messages
\FI'd like to thank the following people:\B
- \Eflap / Capacala\B for writing such a great player.
- \EPál Iváncsics\B, \ELukács Szende\B, \EGergely Bottka\B and \ERichárd Gróf\B for a
  many audio CD-s.
- \EKatalin Szabó\B for many CD-s, for her ideas and a many song lyrics, which
  have helped me in the development.
- \EGyörgy Visontay\B for his ideas.
- \ELászló Bata\B for putting FastCD on the Chip CD 1996 March.
- \EAttila Tóth\B for his ideas and support.
- And my favorite musicians whose music has helped me in the hard hours of
  development

\FMessages:\B
\ESkaven\B I hope after your studies of cartoon animation you will write music
       again!

\EDés László\B Some people said that there would be a Patika 2. When is it
           going to be released?

\EMike Genato\B I really like your "industrial rock" style!

\EBrazil / GURU\B Have a sleep!

\EWindows 95 Believers\B DOS will live forever! (Or at least one or two years...)

\EMr. GoodByteS\B Do you still think Macintosh is the best?

\EHáeN\B Do you still believe in Paintbrush?

\FGreetings:\B

Absence, Access Denied, Astroidea, Avalanche, Capacala, Cascada, Coolteam,
Criminal Gang, Cubic Team, Doomsday, Dubius, EMF, Epical, Fairlight,
Future Crew, Goto 10, Grif, JAMM, KFMF, Murmidones, Nooon, Orange, Pure,
Razor 1911, Renaissance, Sanity, Shock, Soft One, Sonic, The Levisionet
Group, Triton, Unicorn, Wild Light, Witan, Xography

And others whom I have left out.

All at Chip, PC-X, GURU, ABCD

~Help item: TROUBLESHOOTING!
In this chapter of the help you can read about techniques that make problems
inexisting.

This section of help contains \EGENERAL\B troubleshooting information, for
\EALL\B the SSD products. For the description of special problems which
belong to a specified program (problems with functions which are \ENOT\B in other
products, refer to help item \ETROUBLESHOOTING!\B in the program's own help.

Q) An SSD product locks up when I start it.
A) There can be more reasons of it:
   1) The program's EXE file has been modified. All SSD products have a
      self-checking system, so if they are modified, they display a warning
      message and halt - EXCEPT if the self-checking system is damaged: in
      this case, the computer tries to run the damaged code (which usually
      cannot be run) and crashes.
   2) There is a system component in the computer (e.g. a special printer)
      which causes the program to crash. This happens very rarely - so if you
      do not have problems with other programs, that means that this is not a
      hardware problem.
   3) You have installed a program (e.g. a memory manager), which causes the
      program to crash. Though SSD products are compatible with most programs
      (due to they do not contain special, software-specific code). Try to
      boot clean, and if the problem ends, put REM-s at the
      beginning of the lines in AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS, which contain
      program startings one by one (and boot after each) - and after which
      the program is working, that caused the problem.
   4) One or more data files of the program have been modified. SSD products
      check ALL data files' integrity, but sometimes they cannot recognize
      the errors (the chance of this is approx. one to a million, but it can
      happen).

~Help item: Full Help