ZX Review #3-4 22 июля 1997

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Authoring - General Sound - Multimedia for the ZX Spectrum!

     Authoring



  GENERAL SOUND - MULTIMEDIA

       for ZX SPECTRUM!


     In the world of Spectrum happened
quietly, and noise event which, at first glance,
seem maloprimechatelnym.
St. Peteburgskaya firm X-TRADE
developed and released a
musical map GENERAL SOUND.
This card connects to any ZX SPECTRUM 128, and the beloved 
SPECCY receive multimedia and multi-tasking computer (!!!) With 
excellent sound quality: 8 bits for each of the 4-channel audio 
+ 6-bit volume. 

     Total obtain 14-bit
four-channel sound (!) - not
enough for a loved SPECCY. And yet
at an internal sampling rate 37.5 kHz sound, we have
high quality digital
sound (!) - it can not boast of any sound card
IBM PC, except professional.

     But that's not all - in fact
card is also a processor that runs at 12 MHz (faster than any
turbocharged Scorpio / Pentagon), and this means that The 
Spectrum do not spend a single machine

tact for listening
and work with music files
for the card. So it turns out multitasking - you can play
favorite game and at the same time
listen to new sounds and music.
One word - MULTIMEDIA!

     GENERAL SOUND is an independent unit with its
processor. SPECTRUM can hang from a hardware / software 
failure, and GENERAL SOUND will continue to play regularly 
music - and this is Hardware MULTITASKING (hardware 
multitasking), so to speak, already new, higher level

computer hierarchy - more
than the IBM PC, closer to the AMIGA.

     It should be noted that the GENERAL SOUND designed in 
accordance with the standards for digital audio computer Amiga, 
so that the sound quality is appropriate. 

     As an example, we can reduce
user experience, tested in conjunction GENERAL SOUND
TARGET RENEGADE with games and XECUTOR.

     "Instead of the usual beeper
or AY is a cool 8-bit
music, and all this against the background ... jumping piles of 
monochrome pixels, so even on SINKLER'e. 

     In short, something absurd and disparate. But ...
After five minutes of the game, at least in
Target Renegade, it is difficult to
present without the techno music, tasty beats, kicks,
strokes of hammers, the cries of the victims and
of falling prostrate bodies.

     So you can imagine all the effects, scrolling
them:
 1. Music - all 4 tunes:
a menu, and three alternate in
five levels.
 2. Effects - a total of 26 effects.

        Common effects:
 - Flipping a bonus when you pass each level.
 - Whoops, inquired about the appearance of another life.
 - The sound that characterizes the loss
life.
 - The sound that characterizes the passage level.
 - Beep - aware of an expiration time.
 - Sound the fall of the body - is played
nA 7 notes, depending on the
level and the player.
 - Punch and kick - depending on the stroke played on the
different notes.
 - Beat after the jump, and finishing.
 - Hit in the crotch of two types: a blow with his knee and 
kick to reversal.

 - Jump up.
 - Running jump.

         1st Level:
 - Motor bike.
 - Bringing the motorcycle player.
 - Wag the hammer.

         2nd Level:
 - Shoot.
 - Beat whip her aunt.
 - Beat the lash player.
 - Creek aunt during a fall.

         Third level:
 - Wag the ax.

         Fourth level:
 - A dog bite.
 - Screech dog.

         5th level - here
the most "meat" sounds:
 - Beat the forehead.
 - Tasty blow to the liver and
face.
 - Thrash and hit with a stick.
 - Beat the boss forehead with tilting of the victim on the 
floor down the ridge.  - If you defeat the boss, then

hear: "ALILUYA!".

     Almost all the effects are
with different notes, depending on the number of the player or 
enemy. Dispersion of music is normally chosen

randomly. In short, almost every effect is played by 3-7
notes.

     Volume of the music and effects can regulirovat "sliders" 
in the menu. 

     That's all that concerns
Target Renegade. Well Xecutor
"Made" not for me, so I can not
give such a detailed description
effects, except to say that their
there 11.

     Following after the Target
Renegade, I will ZYNAPS and
POWERBOAT, and zatem CHASE H.Q. and
HEADBALL ".

    This, of course, review
"Geek of the games, but this
You can make the appropriate
conclusions. I'd add that
card normally loses
*. MOD-files - music modules - standard and Amigovskie
PC'shnye 4-channel MOD-files
as well as samples - effects.

     GENERAL SOUND has 112K
their working memory (the one that
stands in the map itself - so to speak, a small addition to
memory SPECCY), so that
can be safely kopirovat MOD-files
with IBM PC or AMIGA. And for fans of the music I might add,
that memory can be expanded to
512 K. Yes, I almost forgot: a special program supported 
GENERAL SOUND by computer does not require - the ROM audio

Cards built inside the player.

     GENERAL SOUND presents
from itself, in fact, a complex microprocessor with its 
processor, ROM, RAM, and ports, and is completely independent 
from the main Spectrum processor, which allows, for example, 
upload your own favorite module, reset the Spectrum, download 
the assembler and create your favorite music. Firmware inside 
GENERAL SOUND assumes the entire problem of playing sound, the 
interpretation module, etc. 

     Programming GENERAL
SOUND'a reduces the transmission of bytes
per byte of the module and / or samples,
and then you only need apply commands like: start the module, 
set the global volume of the playback module

start sample # 09 in the channel # 02
etc. Well, that's subtlety ...

     So now everyone's favorite
Spectrum acquired the status of a multimedia computer. Word for
graphics ...

  Sincerely CRASH / PeReStRoiKa.


     P.S. This article used information courtesy of the company 
X-TRADE.