Club 100 Library - 415/939-1246 BBS, 937-5039 NEWSLETTER, 932-8856 VOICE Harmony & Me by Ben Firschein The TRS-80 Model 100's tone generator lets you make music. You can access it easily from basic with the sound command. The manual provides a table that matches tone codes with musical notes. The Model 100 generates notes within a range of five octaves. Unfortunately, there's no software that lets you compose, playback, save, or load a song. To play a song using the tone generator, you must write a program in Basic and use the table in the manual to find the necessary codes. Harmony solves this problem. It runs in 8K RAM. The program menu displays the commands. You enter the names of the notes rather than tone codes. The program plays the note as you press the key, much like a musical instrument would, and it also lets you play the complete song when you're done. You can save the song to load and play it later. The Main Menu Whyen you run the program, a menu appears, displaying the amount of free memory and the following options: Make a song, Play back, Save, Load, Files, and Quit. Press the appropriate key to select an option. If you don't select an available option, the menu redisplays. If you don't have enough memory to run the program, the program notifies you and requests that you make more space available and terminates its execution. You can either delete some files or change line 8 of the program to free up memory (line 8 specifies the maximum amount of notes allowed). Currently, M (the maximum number of notes) is set at 100; this is about a page of music. Make a Song You can enter this mode with the M key. The program gives you a summary of the instructions and function key labels. Enter a note using its name (C,A,G notes, ect.) Specify sharps by pressing the shift key and the note key simultaneously. When you hit the key, the note sounds. use the Model 100's function keys to change the octave or the duration. Function keys 1-5 control the octave, and function keys 6-8 control the duration of the note. The octave and duration don't change again until you use the function keys to change them. Stop keying in notes at any time by hitting the period key. If you never hit the period key, the program tells you when you key in the maximum number of notes allowed. If this happens, the main menu reappears, and the program retains the notes keyed in so far. If you key in the wrong notes, you can easily correct them; hit the backspace key to delete notes until you arrive at the first note you want to change. As you hit the baqckspace key, a cursor shows you the note your on. Retype the note or notes that you want to correct. The original song is maintained up to the note before the cursor. Thus, if you backspace to correct some notes and then type '.' to exit to the main menu, any notes after the cursor are not saved; you must retype any notes that appear after the cursor if you wish to save them. Play Back a Song To get into this mode, hit the P key. Enter the play back mode to play back a song you composed. As the song plays, the program displays the octaves and the names of the notes. Save a Song To save a song type S. The save option writes the song to a file (RAM or cassette). If you type only the file name and don't specify the type of file, the Model 100 assumes it's a RAM file. Since the Model 100 retains its memory even when turned off, files written to RAM remain until you delete them from Basic. If you enter an illegal file name, the program informs you (in English, not by error code) and returns you to the main menu. It also alerts you if you attempt to save a RAM file and run out of memory. Load a Song You can load songs that you've previously saved. If you type the name of the RAM file that doesn't exist, or a bad file name, the program you of the error and returns you to the main menu. After it finds the file, the program loads it and returns to the main menu. You can then play back the song using the play back option. What Are My Files To see what files you have in RAM, press the F key. This is an inportant feature; if you have just composed a song and you have forgotten the names of your files, it's desirable to find out what files you have to prevent writting over a file. This feature also lets you verify whether you've stored a RAM file properly. Quit When you finish, leave the program by calling the Quit option [q]. Write to Ben Firschein at 29 Stowe Lane, Menlo Park, CA 94025.