FORTUNE V1.0 beta

by Harald Sch”nfeld and Bernd Spellenberg

1/22/93


Fortune is a program to play and create sound cites on your ATARI FALCON.
Like on big UNIX computers, your computer will welcome you at boot time by
telling you a cite of a VIP. While the cites are only written on other
computers, the FALCON's sound system makes it possible for you to hear the
original cite.

This program is Public Domain in this version. It may and shall be copied
and spread under the condition that all program- and text- files of this
archive are included.

Cites consist of sound data, cite text and eventually more additional
information about the cite. In boot mode the cites are simply played with or
without texts. If the program is launched later by double-clicking on it, it
allows you to create and change cites from samples.

The current version is a beta version that could have some bugs and in which
some functions are not yet implemented.



1. System requirements

Fortune runs on all FALCON computers, no matter if MultiTOS is installed or
not. As the cites include sampled sounds they need a lot of space on the
mass storage unit. So a harddisk is required. Fortune needs about 450 KB
free RAM. To hear the cites you should either use the internal speaker, the
speaker of the monitor or connect the FALCON to a stereo amplifier. You can
use a headphone, too.



2. Installation

Copy the program (FORTUNEG.PRG=german, FORTUNEE.PRG=english) onto your
harddisk. Copy the cite files (*.CIT) onto your harddisk into a separate
folder. At the moment our (about 16) cites need about 2 MB on the disk.

Install FORTUNEx.PRG as an application. To do so, select FORTUNEx.PRG with
the mouse and choose "Install Application" in the Desktop Menu. Type in
MANAGE as parameter. If you want that FORTUNE plays a cite during boot
time, select the "Auto" boot status. Save the desktop configuration.

Start FORTUNEx.PRG now and select the menu item "Config/File format...". You
can choose the folder that contains the cites: Click onto the popup "Cite
folder" and select the right path in the file select box. If you already
have a special folder for samples you can select it in the same way.
Save the configuration with "Config/Save".

Now select "File/cite". Fortune will now play a randomly chosen cite. If you
don't hear anything, check the installation again.



3. Usage

a) Boot mode

In boot mode fortune will only play one cite (and will eventually show some
text) and terminates right after that. If you press a SHIFT-Key during the
program start, fortune will start in Manage mode.


b) Manage mode

After a normal program start the Fortune menu appears. There are the
following menu items:


Desk/about FORTUNE...

Informs about the current version number.


File/cite

Randomly plays a cite. According to "Config/Play mode...", the text will or
will not be shown. The sound data will be loaded in real time therefore only
very little memory will be needed. You can also play very long cites (or
music). If other programs are running in parallel it is possible that the
data could not be loaded fast enough.


File/Manager...

Here you can select samples for import, edit sound data, export samples and
load/save cites. You can further edit the text information of the cites.

At the beginning you have to select a sample or an existing cite:
klick onto the popup Import/Sample or Import/Cite. The file will be loaded
and played, the filename appears in the popup. You can select EITHER a
sample OR a cite for input.

The text information of the cite can be edited by "Cite", "Source" and
"Remark". When selecting one of these popups, a box appears in which you
can write the text. Use our cites as guidelines. You can also select the
language of the cite.
If you import a sample file and there exists already text data of a former
cite, you can choose to keep them.

In "Edit" you can pinpoint the beginning and the end of the cite within
your sound data up to 1/100 second. The left four buttons are used for the
beginning, the right ones for the end. "Play" plays the current cut.
It is important to choose the cut properly to avoid any disturbing noise
and - even more important - every useless 1/100 second costs up to 2000
Bytes of harddisk space.

"Info" shows informations about the current input file. Please pay
attention to the fact that length is not the file length, but the length
after a possible on-line expansion while playing.

"cite" plays the current cite sound

Saving the samples and cites:

In the box "Save" you find two buttons and to popups for saving.
Normally you will first klick on the popup to type the filename in the
following file select box. The data will be saved and the name appears in
the popup.
If there already is a name in the popup, you can just klick on the according
button to save the data under this name.

If import and export cite (or sample) have the same name, a temporary file
will be created on the harddisk. Therefore it is possible that the data
could not be saved even if there should be enough space on the disk.


File/Quit

Terminates the program.


Config/File format...

First, you can type the default paths for your sample and cite files. Klick
on the according popup and select the folder.

Moreover, you can choose in which format the cite sounds should be saved and
the samples sould be exported. Basically the following formats are
possible (not all are implemented in every case):

- Keep: the sound data will not be changed.
- 16 Bit Stereo: save in 2 channels with 16 Bit each.
- 16 Bit deltapack: save as logarithmic compressed data, that needs 50%
lesse memory but sounds nearly like 16 Bit.
- 8 Bit Stereo
- 16 Bit Mono: if stereo data should be saved as mono, both channels are
added together.
- 16 Bit Mono deltapack
- 8 Bit Mono: spares hardisk space

More formats (e.g. AVR) are planned.

Notice that it is almost useless to convert a worse format to a better one.
It only requires more memory but sounds the same. But it is possible that
other programms support only some formats.


Config/Play mode...

You can determine how to cite
- "cite without text": no text will be shown. In MultiTOS, that means the
other programs execute undisturbed.
- "cite with text": during playing, the text is shown in a box and
dissapears automatically.
- "cite with dialog": the text resides on the screen. Now you can select
"Remark" or "Source" to get further information about the cite. Quit with
"OK".

Most of the dialogs are "fly dials". Just klick on the background of the box
to move it while pressing the mouse button. Some of the other dialogs are
placed in windows so you don't have to close them to go on.



4. Internals

So far the only supported sample format is the DVSM-Format of the program
"WINREC". You should get this program where you got FORTUNE.

A DVSM sample file has the following structure:

typedef struct
{
	char magic[6];     /* "DVSM" */
	int headlen;       /* Headlen in Bytes*/
	int freq;		   /* Sample freqency 0=8kHz 7=50kHz*/
	char pack;		   /* 1=DVS packmethod (not yet supported)*/
	char mode;         /* 0=Stereo 8Bit,1=Stereo 16Bit,2=Mono 8Bit*/
	long blocklen;     /* falls pack=1: Length of a packed block*/ 
} DVSMHEAD;

followed by the 16 Bit stereo data (or DVS 8 Bit data).

The sample frequencies 0 to 7 correspond to the following frequencies:
sam_freq[8]={8195,9834,12292,16490,20770,24585,33880,49170};

The cites are saved in the FORHEAD-Fortune format:

typedef struct
{
	char magic[24];         /* Version number e.g. "Fortune V01.00 beta" */
	int  lang;              /* Language of the cite a la TOS */
	TEXTHEAD text;
	unsigned long t_length; /* Length of the textinformations */
	FOSMHEAD sound;         
	unsigned long s_length; /* Length of the sound data */
	long res1;				/* Reserved */
	long res2;
}FORHEAD;

typedef struct
{
	long cite;			/* Length of each informations string */
	long signature;     /* including the zero byte at the end */
	long author;
	long speaker;
	long source;
	long editor;
	long date;
	long remarks;
	long tres;			/* Reserved */
} TEXTHEAD;

All texts are zero terminated strings. cite and remarks contain at maximum
5x40 characters, every line terminated by '\n'. The others at maximum 40
characters (except the signature).

typedef struct
{
	char magic[6];		/* Info about original sample format e.g. "DVSM" */
	int freq;           /* same as DVSMHEAD */
	char pack,mode;		/* see below */
	long real_l;  eal_l;  eal_l;  eal_l;  eal_l;  c[24];         /* Version number e.g. "Fortune V01.00 beta" */
	int  lang;              /* Language of the cite a la TOS */
	TEXTHEAD text;
	unsigned long t_length; /* Length of the textinformations */
	FOSMHEAD sound;         
	unsigned long s_length; /* Length of the sound data */
	long res1;				/* Reserved */
	long res2;
}FORHEAD;

typedef struct
{
	long cite;			/* Length of each informations string */
	long signature;     /* including the zero byte at the end (and no SHIFT key is
pressed) FORTUNE starts in boot mode. Normally (see Installation) the
parameter MANAGE is passed, so it starts in manage mode.



5. Known Bugs

- In some rare cases data is left out during playing



6. Future Releases

- AVR format
- CPU and DSP deltapacking
- other compression methods



7. Contact

Send suggestions, criticism, comments, bug reports and nice cites (esp.
suggestions and information about compression methods and file formats) to:

Harald Sch”nfeld
Email:
hs@cnve.rrze.uni-erlangen.dbp.de
mppi76@cd4680fs.rrze.uni-erlangen.dbp.de
Postal:
Lerchenstrasse 2, D-W-8501 Veitsbronn, Germany

Bernd Spellenberg
Email:
pi5bspe@pkvx2.physik.uni-erlangen.de
Postal:
Fuerther Strasse 11, D-W-8501 Puschendorf, Germany