6.8 How do I listen to sounds/music from other platforms?

Ian Schmidt has put together an Apple II Sound & Music FAQ which has
much more detail on this subject. It is available online at
http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/faq/snd.mus.html.

For non-GS Apple IIs, there are two programs available. Michael
Mahon's Sound Editor 2.2 is supposed to have very good playback. It is
available from http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/sound22.shk

'IISound' is also available for regular Apple IIs; it can play back
many sorts of sounds, and is reported to use the same playback
routines as Mahon's program above. You can get it from:
ftp://apple2.caltech.edu/Zocalo/pub/apple2/8bit/music.and.sound/iisoun
dv4.2.shk.

With the expanded sound circuitry of the GS, the number of sound
programs is dramatically increased. On the GS, the program
'MacSoundGrabber' can read Mac sounds out of Mac files, and save them
in a GS format; you can get it from
ftp://apple2.caltech.edu/pub/apple2/sound/macsoundgrab.shk.
Alternatively, you can use the 'rMover' addon for Hypercard.

Also, programs such as rSounder 3 and AudioZAP for the GS can
read/play WAV files and lots of other formats. rSounder can also save
converted files (8-bit input only) as GS Resource-based sounds,
suitable for the System 6 Sound control panel.

With most 8-bit mono sounds, you can simply import the file as binary
and use the editor to strip off any header and Zero (0) bytes, which
cause the sound to stop prematurely on playback due to the way the
GS's Ensoniq chip handles samples. 16-bit formats (a number of WAVs,
possibly also .AUs) will sound like garbage; only rSounder 3 and
AudioZAP 2.0 (available only after paying the $20 shareware fee for
AudioZAP 1.x) can deal nicely with those.
ftp://apple2.caltech.edu/pub/apple2/sound/rsounder3.shk.
ftp://apple2.caltech.edu/pub/apple2/sound/audiozap.shk.

About the only non-Apple II music format which is readily playable is
the Amiga .MOD format. Many players exist, from fairly lousy to ones
doing a pretty good job. Recommended ones are MODZap, Beatbox,
Shellplay/Deskplay; most of those are available from
ftp://apple2.caltech.edu/pub/apple2/music/modplayers.

6.9 How do I transfer Hypercard/Hyperstudio files?

Apple bundled a 'rMover' program with Hypercard GS that facilitated
the transfer of files that didn't require custom XCMDs. It can
transfer in both directions. I've never used it, but the necessary
files should be available with the rest of Hypercard at
ftp.support.apple.com, pub/apple_sw_updates/US/Apple_II/HyperCard_IIGS
. These files are unfortunately only unpackable on Macs. The .bxy
files (despite the filetype extension) are not readable on Apple IIs
unless you manually strip off the 512 byte header

Apparently the Mac version of HyperStudio will run GS HyperStudio
stacks without conversion.
_________________________________________________________________

Copyright 1997 by Nathan Mates (Nathan Mates)

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