Readme for the Agathon PM Synth
(c) Harald Eilertsen, MCMXCVII
Last modified 20. May, 1997
*** BETA VERSION 2 ***

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The Agathon PM Synth is a simple tool for playing music on OS/2 Warp. It
allows you to play music on your sound card by using the PC keyboard as a
MIDI keyboard. This is crude, but quite enjoyable for people wanting to
experiment without buying a full MIDI keyboard. Songs can be recorded in
up to 16 tracks, played back and saved to disk for keeping to a later
date.

This is the second beta of Agathon, and adds multichannel record and
playback, as well as file I/O to the basic keyboard functionality in
the first beta. In addition, some fixes have been made.

The user interface is still very crude, this will hopefully be adressed by
the next release. First it will only look right in 1024x768. The program
is "usable" in lower resolutions as well, but it won't be a pretty sight.

Usage should be fairly self explanatory, play music using your keyboard,
press record to record as you play, press play to play back what you've
recorded. You can record up to 16 channels, each with their own
instruments.

If ever a sound gets "stuck" press "Stop" to stop all sounds.


1.1 WHAT'S IN

These are the features that are implemented in this release:

   - Play MIDI instruments with PC Keyboard
   - Multichannel record and playback*
   - Save to/Load from disk file*

* Indicates new features for this release


1.2 WHAT'S MISSING

   - Export/Import to MIDI files
   - Metronome/Count in
   - Support for MIDI controllers
   - UI enhancements
   - Documentation


1.3 REQUIREMENTS

   - OS/2 Warp 4 (or Warp 3 with the RTMIDI libraries installed).
   - a sound card with MIDI support and OS/2 Multimedia drivers.
   - a Intel 80486 or compatible processor.
   - about 100kB disk space

NB: The Agathon PM Synth REQUIRES a sound card with RTMIDI support. Not
    all vendors have got their drivers updated to include this support yet.
    Therefore this program may not work on your computer. If this is the
    case, please let me know, that way I can keep track of which
    soundcards works and which don't.

    I have only tested this program on a Gravis UltraSound PNP with the
    Manley Drivers version 1.20. If you have another soundcard which works
    with Agathon, please let me know also.

    The cards I know does not wark is:

       - Creative Labs SoundBlaster cards
       - Aztec Waverider 32

    Please drop by my web-site to see an updated list of soundcards.


1.4 PROBLEMS

There are a few known problem with this version.

The keyboard element will not scale proberly on resolutions other than
1024x768. If running at a lower resolution, you will not be able to see
the entire keyboard, but playing should not be affected. On larger
resolutions, the keyboard may look a bit small. This also goes for the
volume slider. It will only look right in 1024x768, but will work in all
resolutions.


2.0 INSTALLATION

For this version, there is no installation program. Just copy the files to
a directory of your own liking, and make a program object from the
executable. Agathon does not require any changes in CONFIG.SYS, nor does
it make any changes in any INI files yet.


3.0 THE FUTURE

For the future I have plans for updating the program as time sees fit. I
am a student doing my last year majoring in Microelectronics, and thus do
not have much time for writing code. However I will try to keep a
relatively steady progression with this project. I can not set a
timeframe on any of my goals, though.

For the next release I will concentrate on fixing up the user interface a
bit. If nothing else make the program a bit safer to use, and hopefully a
bit easier too. The next thing after that will be to add the remaining
functionality.


4.0 GET IN TOUCH

I would very much like to hear your comments on this program, even if you
don't like it. Send me any comments you may have. I am very open to
suggestions, and please report any bugs you find immediately. I would also
like reports on how the program performs on different soundcards.

The address is: haraldei@stud.ntnu.no

5.0 UPDATES

Updates will when they are available, be uploaded on hobbes and LEO, and
on my Web page: http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~ haraldei/software.html
This page should be accessible with any browser, hopefully also yours.

6.0 LISENCING

This program is made available to the public domain as FREEWARE.  This
means you are free to use and enjoy this program without paying any
registration fees, neither to the author nor anyone else.  You are also
free to SHARE the program with other people, as long as this text file is
passed along with the program. You are not allowed to use this program
for commercial purposes (i.e. sell it) unless you've got my written
consent in advance.

I can not guarantee that this program is free from defects, and you are
using it at your own risk.

I hope you enjoy the program.

Harald Eilertsen
Author of Agathon PM Synth
District leader of TeamOS/2 Central Norway

