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| mp2Audio (mp2) |
| FalcAmp (mp3) |
| DSPmod (mod) |
| SND Player (snd) |
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| HighWire |
| Cab |
| aMail |
a DSP-chip
Here you can find some info about some really nice Atari apps. Links and snapshots included! So far there is an Audio and Internet section.
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a DSP-chip |
In this section some info about the audio file players mp2Audio (*.mp2), FalcAmp (*.mp3) and dspmod.xdd (*.mod). All these applications make use of the Motorola DSP56001 chip inside your Falcon030.
mp2Audio running under MiNT1.15.9b on a Falcon030
Mp2Audio is an MPEG Audio Layer II (*.mp2) player by Fredrik Noring and Tomas Berndtsson of NoCrew. mp2 files give you the same sound quality as the well known mp3 files, but their compression is less. That's why mp2 files take more space on your harddisk, but require less computational effort when playing them than playing mp3 files. This enables full stereo playback on a standard Falcon030!
This nice player uses only the DSP to decode the mp2's so you can do as many things as you like on the GEM side without affecting the playback quality! It has a console (which opens when you press the lambda-button on the player) with which you can get info about the mp2 file that is playing, the DSP processor load and many more. The graphical interface only runs in interlaced mode on RGB's and non-doublelined mode on VGA's, in other modes the shortcut keys can be used. On my standard Falcon030 44,1 kHz mp2's are played slightly too fast, I use 48 kHz mp2's instead. Resampling your mp2's to 32 kHz is also posible but results in a noticable quality loss. With an external clock device attached to the DSP port the common 44.1 kHz mp2's will be played perfectly.
Get mp2Audio here
.Note: If you have Linux, and the programs mpg123 and toolame, you can convert your mp3 collection to mp2 by using this script.
FalcAMP running under MiNT1.15.9b on a Falcon030
FalcAMP is an MPEG Audio Layer III (*.mp3) player by SECTOR ONE. mp3 files are smaller than the mp2 files mentioned in the mp2audio section, but require great computational effort to play. That's why FalcAMP has to use both the DSP as the MC68030 CPU to play the mp3's. On a standard (non-accelerated) Falcon FalcAMP needs about all processor time available to play the mp3's. But SECTOR ONE succeeded several times already to optimise the playback code and save processor time, so why not again in the near future?
The player has lots of features, including plugin support (with an internet-radio plugin available!), a nice playlist and buttons showing various info's about the mp3 played.
The FalcAMP homepage: http://falcamp.atari.org/
With the DSP Module player device by YesCrew mod files can be played. It requires MiNT >=1.15.0, and a DSP chip :-). When you put the dspmod.xdd (eXtended Device Driver) in your C:\MULTITOS\ (or C:\MINT) folder and reboot, you will notice an extra device in your /dev folder, namely /dev/modplay. With the dspmod.xdd comes a program click.prg, when you register this on the desktop to open *.mod files, the mod will be played over the /dev/modplay device. Nice isn't it?
The YesCrew homepage: http://yescrew.atari.org/
Do you remember the great tunes accompanying games on the Atari ST? This program by Odd Skancke and Anders Eriksson allows you to play them on almost any kind of atari. It ran happily on my 1040STFM, MegaST4 and Falcon030. Some of these three (!) track songs are real artworks.
SND Player features a nice non-standard GEM interface enabling color icons even on plain 1040ST's. It has a VU meter, showing the loudness of each of the three tracks, and a spectrum analyser.
The SND Player homepage: http://sndplayer.atari.org/
Below a description of some applications useful for browsing the internet or reading e-mail and newsgroups.
HighWire is really the most up-to-date internet-browser available for Atari in 2006. And it's open-source and free. Improvements keep being added, like CSS support. Get it from: HighWire project.
Here is a snapshot of CAB, the Crystal Atari Browser, running on a MegaST with MiNT + MultiTOS. This commercial package (version 1.5 is freeware, though) is HTML 3.2 compliant but is aging and not developed anymore since version 2.8 appeared in 1998. It runs fine on even a plain Atari 1040ST. It lives on, as iCab, under Mac OSX.
aMail 1.27 by Atack software is a really nice freeware POP3 e-mail program for MiNT. It also has versions for STiK, Draconis and iConnect. It is well documented, it has an adress book and what I really like, you can watch and delete messages you have without actually having to download them first: use the function "RemoteBox". Also newsgroups can be read with it, but all new messages have to be downloaded first from the newsserver. It uses an external texteditor for writing the mail. So you can configure your favourite text editor with it, but it has to understand the OLGA protocol (e.g. QED or Everest are fine).
If you are low on memory, version 1.26 is much smaller and also quite useable, but it does not do URL highlighting.
