FourBar

A basic tracker program for the Oric computer, with the final aim being to provide background music in programs.

(A work in progress)

The idea, intially, is to provide a live editor/sequencer for a user to create 8 bars of music using 3 channels.

Work completed:

Each bar of music will loop until the next bar is triggered.

The user can trigger the next bar by pressing the numeric keys (1-8).

The next bar will be started when the current bar reaches the last note.

The data for the bars can be saved to, and re-loaded from a .TAP File.

Instructions for using the program are displayed in the editor screen.

TO DO:

Add a simple bar sequencer to allow building of a tune by providing a list of bar numbers to be triggered in sequence.

Add ability to save these sequences together with the bar data.

Simplify the playback loop in tracker_interrupt.s and modularise is so that it can be re-used in other people's programs.

Refactor the code.

Improve comments.

Look for optimizations.

Reduce number of zero page variables.

Download:

The latest working version of the program is available in the build section as FOURBAR.TAP.

Notes:

I've decided to try use a mix of basic an assembler for this, as it will simplify the code (particularly the load & save routines) and make it easier to ensure that it works with both the Oric-1 (ROM v1.0) and Atmos (ROM v1.1).

Creating a new build

After running "./osdk_build" to create a new 'tracker.tap'

For the Atmos:

Create a new basic runner using: bas2tap -b2t0 atmosrun.bas BUILD/atmosrun.tap

(Using Oricuron with ROM v1.1) Then load 'atmosrun.tap' into oricutron.

Next load 'tracker.tap' into oricutron.

Load up some demo music by loading 'DEMO.tap' into oricutron.

Relocate the music data with 'CALL #291B'

Now enter DOKE #9C, #3FFF CSAVE "FOURBAR", AUTO

For the Oric1:

Create a new basic runner using: bas2tap -b2t0 oricrun.bas BUILD/oricrun.tap

(Using Oricuron with ROM v1.1) Then load 'oricrun.tap' into oricutron.