ref: cbbaa56733f76e365b8547b7739633336d634f93
parent: 790e4561b635f6e02e1564af58a8af0361a2b3af
parent: baef71f19db1805a265e371c3a91026ad11ebdf9
author: Christopher Snowhill <[email protected]>
date: Sat Sep 16 09:49:53 EDT 2017
Merge pull request #45 from katajakasa/ttv-markdownize-changelog Rename release.txt and convert it to markdown syntax
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,0 +1,573 @@
+```
+/* _______ ____ __ ___ ___
+ * \ _ \ \ / \ / \ \ / / ' ' '
+ * | | \ \ | | || | \/ | . .
+ * | | | | | | || ||\ /| |
+ * | | | | | | || || \/ | | ' ' '
+ * | | | | | | || || | | . .
+ * | |_/ / \ \__// || | |
+ * /_______/ynamic \____/niversal /__\ /____\usic /| . . ibliotheque
+ * / \
+ * / . \
+ * CHANGELOG.md - Release notes for DUMB. / / \ \
+ * | < / \_
+ * | \/ /\ /
+ * \_ / > /
+ * | \ / /
+ * | ' /
+ * \__/
+ */
+ ```
+
+# DUMB Changelog
+
+## v2.0.0, not released yet
+
+* Memory leak and bug fixes
+* Audio playback quality improvements for STM
+* Added support for FEST MOD files
+* Default resampling quality is now cubic
+* Allegro4 support
+* New dumbplay, dumbout examples
+* Multiple cmake fixes
+* duh_render() deprecated. Instead, there are new duh_render_float()
+ and duh_render_int() API functions.
+
+## v1.0.0, released 17 January 2017
+
+* Support newer compilers
+* Better audio playback quality
+* More supported formats
+* SSE optimizations support
+* CMake support
+* New resamplers
+* Seek support
+* Fixes, cleanups, speedups.
+
+## v0.9.3, released 7 August 2005
+
+Hello! Welcome to a long-awaited-or-probably-just-given-up-on-by-everybody
+release! New to this release are lower memory usage, faster mixing loops,
+loading of text fields in the module files, and faster load functions for
+projects that don't need to seek within the module or know its length.
+Additionally, Chad Austin has contributed a dumb2wav tool for converting
+modules to .wav files and updated the Visual Studio 6 project files to
+compile all the examples as well as the library. Users of Unix-like systems
+will be pleased to know that on Chad's suggestion I have made the build
+system cope with variables such as $HOME or ${HOME} in the prefix.+
+Chad has also contributed an Autotools build system, but neither of us
+recommends its use. The Autotools are an evil black box, we haven't quite
+managed to get it right, and goodness help you if it happens not to work for
+you. The files are available in a separate download if you absolutely need
+them. Notice that that download is almost twice as large as the rest of DUMB!
+
+Maybe we'll do SCons next time.
+
+Thanks to Chad for all his work. Chad is the author of Audiere, a portable
+sound library which has started using DUMB for its module playback! Wahoo!
+
+ http://audiere.sf.net/
+
+There are three main optimisations that went into the mixing loops.
+
+First, I downloaded ModPlugXMMS and had a peek at the mixing code, which is
+Public Domain. It uses look-up tables for the cubic mixing. I pinched the
+idea, and that sped DUMB's cubic (best quality) resamplers up by a factor of
+two or three.
+
+Secondly, the samples loaded from the file are now kept in 8-bit or 16-bit
+format, whereas previously they were being converted to 24-bit-in-32-bit on
+loading. This means the samples occupy a half or a quarter of the memory they
+used to occupy. It also had the side-effect of speeding up the mixing loops,
+but it meant I had to duplicate the resampling code. (It is all done with
+macros in the source code, but it becomes two copies on the binary level.)
+
+Secondly, stereo samples and stereo mixing buffers are now kept in
+interleaved format, where previously the two channels were done separately to
+keep the code simpler. This change has made the library quite a bit bigger,
+but has made the code run almost twice as fast for stereo output (tested for
+modules whose samples are mostly mono)!
+
+DUMB is now as fast as ModPlugXMMS on my system.
+
+Some people have also commented that DUMB seems to take a long time loading
+files. This is because immediately upon loading the file it runs the playback
+engine over it up as far as the point of first loop, taking snapshots at 30-
+second intervals to be used as references for fast seeking and finally
+storing the playback time. Of course, most games don't need this. You can now
+skip it by calling the _quick versions of the dumb_load_*(), dumb_read_*() or
+dumb_register_dat_*() functions. Should you need the data later, you can call
+dumb_it_do_initial_runthrough() to calculate it. Please note that this cannot
+currently be done safely from a concurrent thread while the music is playing.
+
+As mentioned, DUMB loads the text fields in module files now. You can
+retrieve the song title with duh_get_tag(). Sample names and file names and
+instrument names and filenames, and the song message for IT files, are
+available with a call to duh_get_it_sigdata() and various dumb_it_sd_*()
+functions. Please note that text fields added as extensions by ModPlug
+Tracker are not supported.
+
+DUMB's timing is ever so slightly more accurate. This is hardly noticeable,
+but it has meant that the length computed will increase very slightly.
+
+There are many small playback fixes in this release:
+
+* The Lxx effect in XM files (set envelope position) is now supported.
+
+* Pattern looping is now correct for XM files. Bizarrely, an ordinary pattern
+ loop whose start point isn't the first row seems to cause the next pattern
+ to start at the row corresponding to the loop start point. That must have
+ been a headache for people creating XM files! Nevertheless, DUMB now
+ emulates this behaviour. If you have an XM file that was written in a
+ tracker other than Fast Tracker II and breaks in DUMB, you can get around
+ it by putting a D00 effect (break to row 0) right at the end of the pattern
+ containing the loop.
+
+* XM pattern looping can be infinite. DUMB should detect this and call the
+ loop callback when it happens. Specifically, it has a loop counter for each
+ channel, so each time it sets or decrements that counter, it remembers the
+ loop end point for that channel. When the loop terminates, the loop end
+ point is reset to 0. If the loop end point ever decreases during a loop,
+ the loop callback is called. If anyone manages to get around this check and
+ prevent DUMB from calling the callback, please let me know and send me an
+ illustrative XM file!
+
+* For IT files, notes are now removed from channels if they have faded out,
+ even if they are still in the foreground. After this has happened, a row
+ with a note and Gxx (tone portamento) specified will cause a new note to
+ start playing, which is what Impulse Tracker does in this scenario.
+ (Normally, Gxx prevents the new note from playing and instead causes the
+ old note to start sliding towards the new note.)
+
+* If a tone portamento command occurred when no note was playing, the effect
+ value wasn't stored. This has been fixed. Thanks to Maim from #trax on
+ EFnet for discovering this bug.
+
+* DUMB now treats the parameter to the undocumented XM key off effect Kxx as
+ a delay, consistent with Fast Tracker II's behaviour. It has also been made
+ not to clear the note, so a subsequent volume command will restore it, as
+ in Fast Tracker II.
+
+* DUMB used to process the first row when you created the
+ DUMB_IT_SIGRENDERER. This happened before you had a chance to install any
+ callbacks. If an F00 effect occurred on the first row, the music would stop
+ immediately and the xm_speed_zero callback would be called if it were
+ present. Unfortunately, it wasn't present, and the algorithm for
+ calculating the length subsequently went into an endless loop while waiting
+ for it. Worse still, the same algorithm accumulated data for fast seeking,
+ and never stopped, so it pretty quickly consumed all the resources. DUMB
+ will now not process the first row until you first request some samples,
+ provided you pass zero for pos. Of course, any MOD or XM file with F00 in
+ the very first row won't do much anyway, but such files won't crash the
+ library now.
+
+* There was a subtle bug that affected a few XM files. For instruments with
+ no associated samples, the array mapping notes to samples is uninitialised.
+ This became a problem if such instruments were then used, which does happen
+ sometimes. On many systems, memory is initialised to zero when first given
+ to a program (for security reasons), so the problem didn't come up most of
+ the time. However, on platforms like DOS where memory isn't initialised, or
+ in programs that reuse memory later on (this includes the XMMS plug-in with
+ which I discovered the bug), a rogue note would occasionally play. This has
+ now been fixed.
+
+* DUMB's envelope handling for IT files was subtly wrong. Upon note off, it
+ stopped obeying the sustain loop points one tick too early. Notes were
+ often shorter than they should have been, and in pathological cases a whole
+ extra iteration of the sustain loop section might have been skipped. The
+ envelope code has now been rewritten. Thanks go to Allefant for Valgrinding
+ the new code!
+
+Finally, there were two build problems in the last version, which were fixed
+in the download marked with -fixed. They are of course correct in this
+version. For the record:
+
+* The make/config.bat file, responsible for generating make/config.txt, wrote
+ a crucial line to the wrong place, causing it to be left out of the file.
+ As a result, the makefile would fail to install everything for Allegro
+ users, and enter infinite recursion for other users. This applied to people
+ using DJGPP and MinGW.
+
+* DUMB's Makefile was supposed to install the example programs on Unix-based
+ platforms, but it wasn't doing. The fix was to edit Makefile and change the
+ one occurrence of $COMSPEC to $(COMSPEC).
+
+That's it! I hope you enjoy this long-awaited-or-probably-just-given-up-on-
+by-everybody release of DUMB!
+
+
+## v0.9.2, released 2 April 2003
+
+Yes, there really has been a release. This is not a day-late April fools'
+joke.
+
+DUMB's full name has changed! The old "Dedicated Universal Music
+Bastardisation" was rather silly, and not much more than a forced attempt at
+finding words beginning with D, U, M and B. I spent weeks and weeks browsing
+dictionaries and hopelessly asking others for bright ideas, until the
+brilliant Chris "Kitty Cat" Robinson came up with "Dynamic". I decided to
+keep the U as Universal, since a DUH struct can hold digital music in any
+format. Now all that remained was the B, but it didn't take me long to come
+up with Bibliotheque, which, despite looking French, is indeed considered an
+English word by Oxford English Dictionary Online, to which my university has
+a subscription. So there you have it - the name now makes sense.
+
+The two most significant additions to the project would have to be the new
+thread safety (with an important restriction, detailed in docs/dumb.txt), and
+the new build system. The silly 'makeall' and 'makecore' scripts are gone. If
+you are a GCC user, all you need do now is run 'make' and 'make install', as
+for other projects. You don't even have to run a 'fix' script any more! There
+are some caveats, which are covered in readme.txt. If you use Microsoft
+Visual C++ 6, you no longer need to obtain GCC and GNU Make - there is a
+project file just for you.
+
+Huge thanks go to Steve Terry for testing on Windows XP - about five times -
+and to lillo for testing on BeOS and Mac OS X. Thanks also to X-G for testing
+on a Windows system that has consistently posed problems for DUMB's old
+makefiles.
+
+There was a bug whereby al_poll_duh() would sometimes cause the music to
+resume playing if you called it after al_pause_duh(). Whether this was DUMB's
+fault for misusing Allegro's API, or a bug in Allegro, is unclear, but this
+release makes it work.
+
+In one of my projects, I found that my AL_DUH_PLAYER stopped playing when
+there were lots of other sound effects. In order to fix this, I programmed
+DUMB to set the priority of the stream's voice to 255, the maximum. I also
+added al_duh_set_priority(), so you can set the priority yourself if you need
+to.
+
+The resampling code has undergone a transformation. The bad news is that the
+linear average code is no longer in use. The good news is that where DUMB's
+resamplers used to require three extra samples' worth of memory to be
+allocated and initialised, it now copes with just the sample data. And it
+does a very good job at bouncing off loop points and otherwise hurtling
+around the sample. The resampling code is considerably more complicated, but
+the code that uses the resamplers is considerably simpler - and if you
+noticed a slight click in some bidirectionally looping samples, you'll be
+pleased to know that that click is gone!
+
+I have also devoted some effort to optimisation. It seemed hopeless for a
+while, but then I actually figured out a way of making it faster AND more
+accurate at the same time! DUMB is now quite a bit faster than it was, and it
+mixes not with 16-bit precision, but with 24-bit precision. (It used 32-bit
+integers all along, but the difference is that it now makes use of 256 times
+as much of the integer's range.)
+
+There have been the usual improvements to playback. The last release occurred
+rather too soon after I had fixed the XM effect memories; EAx and EBx, fine
+volume ramps, had been neglected. These are now handled properly.
+
+In previous versions of DUMB, muted channels in IT were actually played with
+surround sound panning (where the right-hand channel is inverted). This has
+been fixed, so muted channels will really be muted now.
+
+There were also some subtle problems with the way DUMB handled New Note
+Actions for IT files. It turned out that, in all releases of DUMB so far,
+pitch, filter and panning envelopes and sample vibrato were not being
+processed for any note that was forced into the background by a new note on
+the same channel! This only affected IT files. Not only has this been fixed,
+but envelope interpolation is much more accurate. Long trailing envelope-
+driven fade-outs sound a lot better now!
+
+Since panning and filter envelopes are more precise, extra fields have been
+added to the DUMB_IT_CHANNEL_STATE struct, used by
+dumb_it_sr_get_channel_state(). These fields hold the 'decimal' parts of the
+pan and filter cut-off. See dumb.txt for details.
+
+Mxx (set channel volume) now correctly only modifies the last note played on
+the channel, not any previous notes that have been forced into the background
+by New Note Actions, and filter effect processing is now closer to what
+Impulse Tracker does.
+
+The XM loader was slightly flawed and could crash on files containing samples
+with out-of-range loop points. One such file was given to me. This has been
+fixed.
+
+Finally, the legal stuff. Julien Cugniere has been added to the list of
+copyright owners. He deserves it, for all the work he did on the XM support!
+And the licence has been changed. You are no longer required to include a
+link to DUMB in a project that uses DUMB; the reasons for this relaxation are
+explained in licence.txt. However, the request is still there ...
+
+As usual, enjoy!
+
+
+## v0.9.1, released 19 December 2002
+
+Hi again! Lots to say this time, so I shall cut right to the chase.
+
+DUMB now supports Impulse Tracker's low-pass resonant filters! Huge thanks go
+to Jeffrey Lim, author of Impulse Tracker, for giving me what information he
+still had regarding the algorithm; to cut a long story short, modifying
+ModPlug Tracker's source code (which is in the Public Domain) led to an
+algorithm whose output matched Impulse Tracker's perfectly.
+
+Please note that ModPlug Tracker's filters as they stand do not match Impulse
+Tracker's, and I have no interest in supporting ModPlug Tracker's variant
+(especially not the integer rounding problems). Please see docs/modplug.txt,
+new in this release, for details.
+
+Thanks also go to Fatso Huuskonen for motivating me to add filter support,
+and providing me with several great IT files to test it with!
+
+The other important feature added for this release is click removal. Up until
+now, DUMB has generated clicks when cutting notes, starting samples in the
+middle, and so on. This version of DUMB will remove any such clicks. Note
+that DUMB does not use volume ramps to accomplish this; the algorithm will
+not take the bite out of the music!
+
+In other news, DUMB now supports sample vibrato for IT files, and instrument
+vibrato for XM files. A slight bug in New Note Action handling for IT files
+has been fixed; Note Fade will not break the sustain loops of the sample and
+envelope, as it did before. Tremor handling (Ixy) had a strange bug in it,
+which has been fixed.
+
+Support for XM files has been greatly enhanced. The XM envelope handling new
+in the last release contained a huge bug, resulting in notes seeming not to
+stop when they should; this has been fixed. Some XM files crashed DUMB, while
+others failed to load; these problems have been solved. Effect memories now
+work properly for XM and MOD files, to the best of my knowledge. Some other
+differences between IT and XM have been accounted for, most notably the
+Retrigger Note effects, Rxy and E9x.
+
+DUMB's sound quality and accuracy are not the only areas that have been
+enhanced. The API has been expanded, at last. You can now detect when a
+module loops, or make it play through just once. You can ask DUMB to inform
+you every time it generates some samples; this is useful for visualisation.
+For IT files, you can intercept the MIDI messages generated by Zxx macros,
+enabling you to synchronise your game with the music to some extent. (There
+is no such method for XM, S3M or MOD files yet; sorry. Also note that the
+function will be called before you actually hear the sound; I cannot improve
+this until DUMB has its own sound drivers, which won't be for a while.) You
+can query the current order and row. Finally, operations like changing the
+speed and tempo are now possible, and you can query the playback state on
+each channel.
+
+Some parts of DUMB's API have been deprecated. Simple programs that use
+Allegro will be unaffected, but if you get some compiler warnings or errors,
+please review docs/deprec.txt. This file explains why those parts of the API
+were deprecated, and tells you how to adapt your code; the changes you need
+to make are straightforward. Sorry for the inconvenience.
+
+For various reasons, I have made DUMB's makefiles use different compiler
+flags depending on your GCC version (unless you are using MSVC). There is no
+elegant way of getting the makefiles to detect when GCC is upgraded. If you
+upgrade GCC, you should execute 'make clean' in order to make DUMB detect the
+GCC version again. Otherwise you may get some annoying error messages. (It is
+wise to do this in any case, so that all the object files are built with the
+same GCC version.)
+
+DUMB's example players have been unified into a single player called
+'dumbplay'. The player has been enhanced to display messages when the music
+loops, and when XM and MOD files freeze (effect F00; more information on this
+in docs/howto.txt).
+
+Finally, as noted on DUMB's website, the release notes from the last release
+were inaccurate. It has been verified that DUMBOGG v0.5 does still work with
+that release, and still works with this release. The esoteric DUMBOGG v0.6
+has not been created yet, since DUMBOGG v0.5 still works.
+
+Please scroll down and read through the indented paragraphs in the notes for
+the last release; they are relevant for this release too.
+
+That's all folks! Until next time.
+
+
+## v0.9, released 16 October 2002
+
+MOD support is here! DUMB now supports all four of the common module formats.
+As usual, there have also been some improvements to the way modules are
+played back. Most notably, handling of tone portamento in IT files has been
+improved a lot, and XM envelopes are now processed correctly.
+
+The other major change is that DUMB now does a dummy run through each module
+on loading. It stores the playback state at thirty-second intervals. It stops
+when the module first loops, and then stores the playback time. This results
+in a slightly longer load time and a greater memory overhead, but seeking is
+faster (to any point before the module first loops) and the length is
+calculated! duh_get_length() will return this and is now documented in
+docs/howto.txt and docs/dumb.txt.
+
+DUMB's build process has been changed to use 'mingw' wherever it used
+'mingw32' before; some directories have been renamed, and the 'fix' command
+you had to run for MinGW has been changed from 'fix mingw32' to 'fix mingw'.
+
+Last time, I directed you to scroll down and read the notes from a past
+release, but ignore this point, and that point applies to something else, and
+so on. Did anyone do so? Well, if you're reading this at all, you probably
+did. Nevertheless, this time I shall be much less confusing and restate any
+relevant information. So the least you can do is read it!
+
+- If your program ever aborts with exit code 37 while loading an IT file,
+ PLEASE LET ME KNOW! The IT file in question has a stereo compressed sample
+ in it, and the format is unspecified for this case (Impulse Tracker itself
+ doesn't use stereo samples at all). I will need the IT file in question,
+ and any information you can give me about how the IT file was created (e.g.
+ what program). (If you don't get to see an exit code, let me know anyway.)
+
+- If your program ever outputs a line resembling "Inst 01 Env: 0,64 8,32
+ 15,48" to stderr while loading an IT file, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! You have an
+ old IT file (saved by an Impulse Tracker version older than 2.00), and
+ support for such files is STILL untested.
+
+- Not all parts of DUMB's API are documented yet. You will find some
+ functions in dumb.h which are not listed in docs/dumb.txt; the reason is
+ that these functions still need work and will probably change. If you
+ really, really want to use them, talk to me first (IRC EFnet #dumb is a
+ good place for this; see readme.txt for details on using IRC). I intend to
+ finalise and document the whole of DUMB's API for Version 1.0.
+
+There have been some changes to the naming conventions in DUMB's undocumented
+API. DUMBOGG v0.5 will not work with this and subsequent releases of DUMB;
+please upgrade to DUMBOGG v0.6. These changes should not break anything in
+your own code, since you didn't use those parts of the API, did you ;)
+
+There is still a great deal of work to be done before DUMB's API can be
+finalised, and thus it will be a while before DUMB v1.0 comes out. It should
+be worth the wait. In the meantime, there will be 0.9.x releases with
+additional functionality, improved playback, and possibly support for some
+extra file formats.
+
+Finally I should like to offer an apology; there is a strong possibility that
+some of DUMB's official API will change in the near future. There will not be
+any drastic changes, and the corresponding changes to your source code will
+be simple enough. If I didn't make these changes, DUMB's API would start to
+become limited, or messy, or both, so it's for the better. I apologise in
+advance for this.
+
+Now scroll down and read the notes for the first r... oh wait, we already did
+that. I guess that's it then. You can stop reading now.
+
+Right after you've read this.
+
+And this.
+
+Off you go.
+
+Bye.
+
+
+## v0.8.1, released 11 August 2002
+
+This is a minor release that fixes a few bugs. One of these bugs, however,
+was pretty serious. dumb_register_dat_xm() was never coded! It was prototyped
+in aldumb.h, so code would compile, but there would be an unresolved symbol
+at the linking stage. This has been fixed.
+
+Platforms other than Unix did not have a working 'make veryclean' target;
+this has been fixed. In addition, the makefiles now use 'xcopy' instead of
+'copy', since on some systems GNU Make seems to have trouble calling commands
+built in to the shell.
+
+Contrary to the errata that was on the DUMB website, the makeall.sh and
+makecore.sh scripts actually DID install in /usr. This has now been
+corrected, and regardless of whether you use these scripts or call make
+directly, the files will now be installed to /usr/local by default.
+
+The XM loader used to treat stereo samples as mono samples with the data for
+the right channel positioned after the data for the left channel. This
+generally resulted in an unwanted echo effect. This has been fixed.
+
+When playing XM files, specifying an invalid instrument would cause an old
+note on that channel to come back (roughly speaking). Fast Tracker 2 does not
+exhibit this behaviour. This has been fixed.
+
+The GCC makefiles used -mpentium, which is deprecated in gcc 3.x. This was
+generating warnings, and has now been fixed.
+
+In XM files, the length of a sample is stored in bytes. DUMB was assuming
+that the length of a 16-bit sample would be even. I had two XM files where
+this was not the case, and DUMB was unable to load them. This has been fixed.
+
+In order to accommodate the extra part of the version number,
+DUMB_REVISION_VERSION has been added. DUMB_VERSION has also been added in
+order to facilitate checking if the version of DUMB installed is sufficient.
+See docs/dumb.txt for details.
+
+As a last-minute fix, the XM "Break to row" effect is now loaded properly. It
+was necessary to convert from binary-coded decimal to hexadecimal (those who
+have experience with Fast Tracker 2 will know what I mean). In short, this
+means the effect will now work properly when breaking to row 10 or greater.
+
+DUMB v0.8 had faulty release date constants; DUMB_MONTH and DUMB_DAY were
+swapped! For this reason, DUMB_DATE should not be compared against any date
+in 2002. This note has been added to docs/dumb.txt and also to dumb.h.
+
+Please scroll to the end and read the release notes for the first version,
+DUMB v0.7. Most of them apply equally to this release. However, the
+non-portable code was rewritten for DUMB v0.8, so that point does not apply.
+The point about length not being calculated also applies to XM files.
+
+Enjoy :)
+
+
+## v0.8, released 14 June 2002
+
+Welcome to the second release of DUMB!
+
+In addition to these notes, please read below the release notes for the
+previous version, DUMB v0.7. Most of them apply equally to this release.
+However, the non-portable code has been rewritten; DUMB should now port to
+big-endian platforms.
+
+The main improvement in this release of DUMB is the support for XM files.
+Enormous thanks go to Julien Cugniere for working on this while I had to
+revise for my exams!
+
+There was a mistake in the makefiles in the last release. The debugging
+Allegro interface library was mistakenly named libaldmbd.a instead of
+libaldmd.a, meaning you had to compile with -laldmbd, contrary to what the
+docs said. Apologies to everyone who lost sleep trying to work out what was
+wrong! The reason for using libaldmd.a is to maintain compatibility with
+plain DOS, where filenames are limited to eight characters (plus a three-
+letter extension). The makefiles have now been changed to match the
+information in the docs, so you may have to alter your project files
+accordingly.
+
+The example programs were faulty, and crashed on Windows if they were unable
+to load the file. It was also difficult to work out how to exit them (you had
+to click the taskbar button that didn't have a window, then press a key).
+They have been improved in both these respects.
+
+I have now added a docs/faq.txt file (Frequently Asked Questions), which is
+based on problems and misconceptions people have had with the first release.
+Please refer to it before contacting me with problems.
+
+Thanks to networm for touching up the Unix makefile and writing the
+instructions on using it.
+
+Incidentally, today (Friday 14 June) is the Robinson College May Ball at
+Cambridge Uni. God knows why it's called a May Ball if it's in June. I'm not
+going myself (72 GBP, and I'd have to wear a suit, ugh), but with all the
+noise outside I shall enjoy pumping up the speakers tonight!
+
+
+## DUMB v0.7, released 2 March 2002
+
+This is the first release of DUMB, and parts of the library are not
+crystallised. Don't let this put you off! Provided you don't try to use any
+features that aren't documented in docs/dumb.txt, the library should be rock
+solid and you should be able to upgrade more or less without problems.
+
+Here are some notes on this release:
+
+- There is some non-portable code in this release of DUMB. It is likely that
+ the library will fail to load IT files with compressed samples on
+ big-endian machines such as the Apple Macintosh.
+
+- If your program ever aborts with exit code 37 while loading an IT file,
+ PLEASE LET ME KNOW! The IT file in question has a stereo compressed sample
+ in it, and the format is unspecified for this case (Impulse Tracker itself
+ doesn't use stereo samples at all). I will need the IT file in question,
+ and any information you can give me about how the IT file was created (e.g.
+ what program). (If you don't get to see an exit code, let me know anyway.)
+
+- If your program ever outputs a line resembling "Inst 01 Env: 0,64 8,32
+ 15,48" to stderr while loading an IT file, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! You have an
+ old IT file (saved by an Impulse Tracker version older than 2.00), and
+ support for such files is untested.
+
+- The length of IT and S3M files is not currently calculated. It is just set
+ to ten minutes.
--- a/release.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,561 +1,0 @@
-/* _______ ____ __ ___ ___
- * \ _ \ \ / \ / \ \ / / ' ' '
- * | | \ \ | | || | \/ | . .
- * | | | | | | || ||\ /| |
- * | | | | | | || || \/ | | ' ' '
- * | | | | | | || || | | . .
- * | |_/ / \ \__// || | |
- * /_______/ynamic \____/niversal /__\ /____\usic /| . . ibliotheque
- * / \
- * / . \
- * release.txt - Release notes for DUMB. / / \ \
- * | < / \_
- * | \/ /\ /
- * \_ / > /
- * | \ / /
- * | ' /
- * \__/
- */
-
-
-*******************************************
-*** DUMB v0.9.3, released 7 August 2005 ***
-*******************************************
-
-Hello! Welcome to a long-awaited-or-probably-just-given-up-on-by-everybody
-release! New to this release are lower memory usage, faster mixing loops,
-loading of text fields in the module files, and faster load functions for
-projects that don't need to seek within the module or know its length.
-Additionally, Chad Austin has contributed a dumb2wav tool for converting
-modules to .wav files and updated the Visual Studio 6 project files to
-compile all the examples as well as the library. Users of Unix-like systems
-will be pleased to know that on Chad's suggestion I have made the build
-system cope with variables such as $HOME or ${HOME} in the prefix.-
-Chad has also contributed an Autotools build system, but neither of us
-recommends its use. The Autotools are an evil black box, we haven't quite
-managed to get it right, and goodness help you if it happens not to work for
-you. The files are available in a separate download if you absolutely need
-them. Notice that that download is almost twice as large as the rest of DUMB!
-
-Maybe we'll do SCons next time.
-
-Thanks to Chad for all his work. Chad is the author of Audiere, a portable
-sound library which has started using DUMB for its module playback! Wahoo!
-
- http://audiere.sf.net/
-
-There are three main optimisations that went into the mixing loops.
-
-First, I downloaded ModPlugXMMS and had a peek at the mixing code, which is
-Public Domain. It uses look-up tables for the cubic mixing. I pinched the
-idea, and that sped DUMB's cubic (best quality) resamplers up by a factor of
-two or three.
-
-Secondly, the samples loaded from the file are now kept in 8-bit or 16-bit
-format, whereas previously they were being converted to 24-bit-in-32-bit on
-loading. This means the samples occupy a half or a quarter of the memory they
-used to occupy. It also had the side-effect of speeding up the mixing loops,
-but it meant I had to duplicate the resampling code. (It is all done with
-macros in the source code, but it becomes two copies on the binary level.)
-
-Secondly, stereo samples and stereo mixing buffers are now kept in
-interleaved format, where previously the two channels were done separately to
-keep the code simpler. This change has made the library quite a bit bigger,
-but has made the code run almost twice as fast for stereo output (tested for
-modules whose samples are mostly mono)!
-
-DUMB is now as fast as ModPlugXMMS on my system.
-
-Some people have also commented that DUMB seems to take a long time loading
-files. This is because immediately upon loading the file it runs the playback
-engine over it up as far as the point of first loop, taking snapshots at 30-
-second intervals to be used as references for fast seeking and finally
-storing the playback time. Of course, most games don't need this. You can now
-skip it by calling the _quick versions of the dumb_load_*(), dumb_read_*() or
-dumb_register_dat_*() functions. Should you need the data later, you can call
-dumb_it_do_initial_runthrough() to calculate it. Please note that this cannot
-currently be done safely from a concurrent thread while the music is playing.
-
-As mentioned, DUMB loads the text fields in module files now. You can
-retrieve the song title with duh_get_tag(). Sample names and file names and
-instrument names and filenames, and the song message for IT files, are
-available with a call to duh_get_it_sigdata() and various dumb_it_sd_*()
-functions. Please note that text fields added as extensions by ModPlug
-Tracker are not supported.
-
-DUMB's timing is ever so slightly more accurate. This is hardly noticeable,
-but it has meant that the length computed will increase very slightly.
-
-There are many small playback fixes in this release:
-
-* The Lxx effect in XM files (set envelope position) is now supported.
-
-* Pattern looping is now correct for XM files. Bizarrely, an ordinary pattern
- loop whose start point isn't the first row seems to cause the next pattern
- to start at the row corresponding to the loop start point. That must have
- been a headache for people creating XM files! Nevertheless, DUMB now
- emulates this behaviour. If you have an XM file that was written in a
- tracker other than Fast Tracker II and breaks in DUMB, you can get around
- it by putting a D00 effect (break to row 0) right at the end of the pattern
- containing the loop.
-
-* XM pattern looping can be infinite. DUMB should detect this and call the
- loop callback when it happens. Specifically, it has a loop counter for each
- channel, so each time it sets or decrements that counter, it remembers the
- loop end point for that channel. When the loop terminates, the loop end
- point is reset to 0. If the loop end point ever decreases during a loop,
- the loop callback is called. If anyone manages to get around this check and
- prevent DUMB from calling the callback, please let me know and send me an
- illustrative XM file!
-
-* For IT files, notes are now removed from channels if they have faded out,
- even if they are still in the foreground. After this has happened, a row
- with a note and Gxx (tone portamento) specified will cause a new note to
- start playing, which is what Impulse Tracker does in this scenario.
- (Normally, Gxx prevents the new note from playing and instead causes the
- old note to start sliding towards the new note.)
-
-* If a tone portamento command occurred when no note was playing, the effect
- value wasn't stored. This has been fixed. Thanks to Maim from #trax on
- EFnet for discovering this bug.
-
-* DUMB now treats the parameter to the undocumented XM key off effect Kxx as
- a delay, consistent with Fast Tracker II's behaviour. It has also been made
- not to clear the note, so a subsequent volume command will restore it, as
- in Fast Tracker II.
-
-* DUMB used to process the first row when you created the
- DUMB_IT_SIGRENDERER. This happened before you had a chance to install any
- callbacks. If an F00 effect occurred on the first row, the music would stop
- immediately and the xm_speed_zero callback would be called if it were
- present. Unfortunately, it wasn't present, and the algorithm for
- calculating the length subsequently went into an endless loop while waiting
- for it. Worse still, the same algorithm accumulated data for fast seeking,
- and never stopped, so it pretty quickly consumed all the resources. DUMB
- will now not process the first row until you first request some samples,
- provided you pass zero for pos. Of course, any MOD or XM file with F00 in
- the very first row won't do much anyway, but such files won't crash the
- library now.
-
-* There was a subtle bug that affected a few XM files. For instruments with
- no associated samples, the array mapping notes to samples is uninitialised.
- This became a problem if such instruments were then used, which does happen
- sometimes. On many systems, memory is initialised to zero when first given
- to a program (for security reasons), so the problem didn't come up most of
- the time. However, on platforms like DOS where memory isn't initialised, or
- in programs that reuse memory later on (this includes the XMMS plug-in with
- which I discovered the bug), a rogue note would occasionally play. This has
- now been fixed.
-
-* DUMB's envelope handling for IT files was subtly wrong. Upon note off, it
- stopped obeying the sustain loop points one tick too early. Notes were
- often shorter than they should have been, and in pathological cases a whole
- extra iteration of the sustain loop section might have been skipped. The
- envelope code has now been rewritten. Thanks go to Allefant for Valgrinding
- the new code!
-
-Finally, there were two build problems in the last version, which were fixed
-in the download marked with -fixed. They are of course correct in this
-version. For the record:
-
-* The make/config.bat file, responsible for generating make/config.txt, wrote
- a crucial line to the wrong place, causing it to be left out of the file.
- As a result, the makefile would fail to install everything for Allegro
- users, and enter infinite recursion for other users. This applied to people
- using DJGPP and MinGW.
-
-* DUMB's Makefile was supposed to install the example programs on Unix-based
- platforms, but it wasn't doing. The fix was to edit Makefile and change the
- one occurrence of $COMSPEC to $(COMSPEC).
-
-That's it! I hope you enjoy this long-awaited-or-probably-just-given-up-on-
-by-everybody release of DUMB!
-
-
-******************************************
-*** DUMB v0.9.2, released 2 April 2003 ***
-******************************************
-
-Yes, there really has been a release. This is not a day-late April fools'
-joke.
-
-DUMB's full name has changed! The old "Dedicated Universal Music
-Bastardisation" was rather silly, and not much more than a forced attempt at
-finding words beginning with D, U, M and B. I spent weeks and weeks browsing
-dictionaries and hopelessly asking others for bright ideas, until the
-brilliant Chris "Kitty Cat" Robinson came up with "Dynamic". I decided to
-keep the U as Universal, since a DUH struct can hold digital music in any
-format. Now all that remained was the B, but it didn't take me long to come
-up with Bibliotheque, which, despite looking French, is indeed considered an
-English word by Oxford English Dictionary Online, to which my university has
-a subscription. So there you have it - the name now makes sense.
-
-The two most significant additions to the project would have to be the new
-thread safety (with an important restriction, detailed in docs/dumb.txt), and
-the new build system. The silly 'makeall' and 'makecore' scripts are gone. If
-you are a GCC user, all you need do now is run 'make' and 'make install', as
-for other projects. You don't even have to run a 'fix' script any more! There
-are some caveats, which are covered in readme.txt. If you use Microsoft
-Visual C++ 6, you no longer need to obtain GCC and GNU Make - there is a
-project file just for you.
-
-Huge thanks go to Steve Terry for testing on Windows XP - about five times -
-and to lillo for testing on BeOS and Mac OS X. Thanks also to X-G for testing
-on a Windows system that has consistently posed problems for DUMB's old
-makefiles.
-
-There was a bug whereby al_poll_duh() would sometimes cause the music to
-resume playing if you called it after al_pause_duh(). Whether this was DUMB's
-fault for misusing Allegro's API, or a bug in Allegro, is unclear, but this
-release makes it work.
-
-In one of my projects, I found that my AL_DUH_PLAYER stopped playing when
-there were lots of other sound effects. In order to fix this, I programmed
-DUMB to set the priority of the stream's voice to 255, the maximum. I also
-added al_duh_set_priority(), so you can set the priority yourself if you need
-to.
-
-The resampling code has undergone a transformation. The bad news is that the
-linear average code is no longer in use. The good news is that where DUMB's
-resamplers used to require three extra samples' worth of memory to be
-allocated and initialised, it now copes with just the sample data. And it
-does a very good job at bouncing off loop points and otherwise hurtling
-around the sample. The resampling code is considerably more complicated, but
-the code that uses the resamplers is considerably simpler - and if you
-noticed a slight click in some bidirectionally looping samples, you'll be
-pleased to know that that click is gone!
-
-I have also devoted some effort to optimisation. It seemed hopeless for a
-while, but then I actually figured out a way of making it faster AND more
-accurate at the same time! DUMB is now quite a bit faster than it was, and it
-mixes not with 16-bit precision, but with 24-bit precision. (It used 32-bit
-integers all along, but the difference is that it now makes use of 256 times
-as much of the integer's range.)
-
-There have been the usual improvements to playback. The last release occurred
-rather too soon after I had fixed the XM effect memories; EAx and EBx, fine
-volume ramps, had been neglected. These are now handled properly.
-
-In previous versions of DUMB, muted channels in IT were actually played with
-surround sound panning (where the right-hand channel is inverted). This has
-been fixed, so muted channels will really be muted now.
-
-There were also some subtle problems with the way DUMB handled New Note
-Actions for IT files. It turned out that, in all releases of DUMB so far,
-pitch, filter and panning envelopes and sample vibrato were not being
-processed for any note that was forced into the background by a new note on
-the same channel! This only affected IT files. Not only has this been fixed,
-but envelope interpolation is much more accurate. Long trailing envelope-
-driven fade-outs sound a lot better now!
-
-Since panning and filter envelopes are more precise, extra fields have been
-added to the DUMB_IT_CHANNEL_STATE struct, used by
-dumb_it_sr_get_channel_state(). These fields hold the 'decimal' parts of the
-pan and filter cut-off. See dumb.txt for details.
-
-Mxx (set channel volume) now correctly only modifies the last note played on
-the channel, not any previous notes that have been forced into the background
-by New Note Actions, and filter effect processing is now closer to what
-Impulse Tracker does.
-
-The XM loader was slightly flawed and could crash on files containing samples
-with out-of-range loop points. One such file was given to me. This has been
-fixed.
-
-Finally, the legal stuff. Julien Cugniere has been added to the list of
-copyright owners. He deserves it, for all the work he did on the XM support!
-And the licence has been changed. You are no longer required to include a
-link to DUMB in a project that uses DUMB; the reasons for this relaxation are
-explained in licence.txt. However, the request is still there ...
-
-As usual, enjoy!
-
-
-**********************************************
-*** DUMB v0.9.1, released 19 December 2002 ***
-**********************************************
-
-Hi again! Lots to say this time, so I shall cut right to the chase.
-
-DUMB now supports Impulse Tracker's low-pass resonant filters! Huge thanks go
-to Jeffrey Lim, author of Impulse Tracker, for giving me what information he
-still had regarding the algorithm; to cut a long story short, modifying
-ModPlug Tracker's source code (which is in the Public Domain) led to an
-algorithm whose output matched Impulse Tracker's perfectly.
-
-Please note that ModPlug Tracker's filters as they stand do not match Impulse
-Tracker's, and I have no interest in supporting ModPlug Tracker's variant
-(especially not the integer rounding problems). Please see docs/modplug.txt,
-new in this release, for details.
-
-Thanks also go to Fatso Huuskonen for motivating me to add filter support,
-and providing me with several great IT files to test it with!
-
-The other important feature added for this release is click removal. Up until
-now, DUMB has generated clicks when cutting notes, starting samples in the
-middle, and so on. This version of DUMB will remove any such clicks. Note
-that DUMB does not use volume ramps to accomplish this; the algorithm will
-not take the bite out of the music!
-
-In other news, DUMB now supports sample vibrato for IT files, and instrument
-vibrato for XM files. A slight bug in New Note Action handling for IT files
-has been fixed; Note Fade will not break the sustain loops of the sample and
-envelope, as it did before. Tremor handling (Ixy) had a strange bug in it,
-which has been fixed.
-
-Support for XM files has been greatly enhanced. The XM envelope handling new
-in the last release contained a huge bug, resulting in notes seeming not to
-stop when they should; this has been fixed. Some XM files crashed DUMB, while
-others failed to load; these problems have been solved. Effect memories now
-work properly for XM and MOD files, to the best of my knowledge. Some other
-differences between IT and XM have been accounted for, most notably the
-Retrigger Note effects, Rxy and E9x.
-
-DUMB's sound quality and accuracy are not the only areas that have been
-enhanced. The API has been expanded, at last. You can now detect when a
-module loops, or make it play through just once. You can ask DUMB to inform
-you every time it generates some samples; this is useful for visualisation.
-For IT files, you can intercept the MIDI messages generated by Zxx macros,
-enabling you to synchronise your game with the music to some extent. (There
-is no such method for XM, S3M or MOD files yet; sorry. Also note that the
-function will be called before you actually hear the sound; I cannot improve
-this until DUMB has its own sound drivers, which won't be for a while.) You
-can query the current order and row. Finally, operations like changing the
-speed and tempo are now possible, and you can query the playback state on
-each channel.
-
-Some parts of DUMB's API have been deprecated. Simple programs that use
-Allegro will be unaffected, but if you get some compiler warnings or errors,
-please review docs/deprec.txt. This file explains why those parts of the API
-were deprecated, and tells you how to adapt your code; the changes you need
-to make are straightforward. Sorry for the inconvenience.
-
-For various reasons, I have made DUMB's makefiles use different compiler
-flags depending on your GCC version (unless you are using MSVC). There is no
-elegant way of getting the makefiles to detect when GCC is upgraded. If you
-upgrade GCC, you should execute 'make clean' in order to make DUMB detect the
-GCC version again. Otherwise you may get some annoying error messages. (It is
-wise to do this in any case, so that all the object files are built with the
-same GCC version.)
-
-DUMB's example players have been unified into a single player called
-'dumbplay'. The player has been enhanced to display messages when the music
-loops, and when XM and MOD files freeze (effect F00; more information on this
-in docs/howto.txt).
-
-Finally, as noted on DUMB's website, the release notes from the last release
-were inaccurate. It has been verified that DUMBOGG v0.5 does still work with
-that release, and still works with this release. The esoteric DUMBOGG v0.6
-has not been created yet, since DUMBOGG v0.5 still works.
-
-Please scroll down and read through the indented paragraphs in the notes for
-the last release; they are relevant for this release too.
-
-That's all folks! Until next time.
-
-
-*******************************************
-*** DUMB v0.9, released 16 October 2002 ***
-*******************************************
-
-MOD support is here! DUMB now supports all four of the common module formats.
-As usual, there have also been some improvements to the way modules are
-played back. Most notably, handling of tone portamento in IT files has been
-improved a lot, and XM envelopes are now processed correctly.
-
-The other major change is that DUMB now does a dummy run through each module
-on loading. It stores the playback state at thirty-second intervals. It stops
-when the module first loops, and then stores the playback time. This results
-in a slightly longer load time and a greater memory overhead, but seeking is
-faster (to any point before the module first loops) and the length is
-calculated! duh_get_length() will return this and is now documented in
-docs/howto.txt and docs/dumb.txt.
-
-DUMB's build process has been changed to use 'mingw' wherever it used
-'mingw32' before; some directories have been renamed, and the 'fix' command
-you had to run for MinGW has been changed from 'fix mingw32' to 'fix mingw'.
-
-Last time, I directed you to scroll down and read the notes from a past
-release, but ignore this point, and that point applies to something else, and
-so on. Did anyone do so? Well, if you're reading this at all, you probably
-did. Nevertheless, this time I shall be much less confusing and restate any
-relevant information. So the least you can do is read it!
-
-- If your program ever aborts with exit code 37 while loading an IT file,
- PLEASE LET ME KNOW! The IT file in question has a stereo compressed sample
- in it, and the format is unspecified for this case (Impulse Tracker itself
- doesn't use stereo samples at all). I will need the IT file in question,
- and any information you can give me about how the IT file was created (e.g.
- what program). (If you don't get to see an exit code, let me know anyway.)
-
-- If your program ever outputs a line resembling "Inst 01 Env: 0,64 8,32
- 15,48" to stderr while loading an IT file, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! You have an
- old IT file (saved by an Impulse Tracker version older than 2.00), and
- support for such files is STILL untested.
-
-- Not all parts of DUMB's API are documented yet. You will find some
- functions in dumb.h which are not listed in docs/dumb.txt; the reason is
- that these functions still need work and will probably change. If you
- really, really want to use them, talk to me first (IRC EFnet #dumb is a
- good place for this; see readme.txt for details on using IRC). I intend to
- finalise and document the whole of DUMB's API for Version 1.0.
-
-There have been some changes to the naming conventions in DUMB's undocumented
-API. DUMBOGG v0.5 will not work with this and subsequent releases of DUMB;
-please upgrade to DUMBOGG v0.6. These changes should not break anything in
-your own code, since you didn't use those parts of the API, did you ;)
-
-There is still a great deal of work to be done before DUMB's API can be
-finalised, and thus it will be a while before DUMB v1.0 comes out. It should
-be worth the wait. In the meantime, there will be 0.9.x releases with
-additional functionality, improved playback, and possibly support for some
-extra file formats.
-
-Finally I should like to offer an apology; there is a strong possibility that
-some of DUMB's official API will change in the near future. There will not be
-any drastic changes, and the corresponding changes to your source code will
-be simple enough. If I didn't make these changes, DUMB's API would start to
-become limited, or messy, or both, so it's for the better. I apologise in
-advance for this.
-
-Now scroll down and read the notes for the first r... oh wait, we already did
-that. I guess that's it then. You can stop reading now.
-
-Right after you've read this.
-
-And this.
-
-Off you go.
-
-Bye.
-
-
-********************************************
-*** DUMB v0.8.1, released 11 August 2002 ***
-********************************************
-
-This is a minor release that fixes a few bugs. One of these bugs, however,
-was pretty serious. dumb_register_dat_xm() was never coded! It was prototyped
-in aldumb.h, so code would compile, but there would be an unresolved symbol
-at the linking stage. This has been fixed.
-
-Platforms other than Unix did not have a working 'make veryclean' target;
-this has been fixed. In addition, the makefiles now use 'xcopy' instead of
-'copy', since on some systems GNU Make seems to have trouble calling commands
-built in to the shell.
-
-Contrary to the errata that was on the DUMB website, the makeall.sh and
-makecore.sh scripts actually DID install in /usr. This has now been
-corrected, and regardless of whether you use these scripts or call make
-directly, the files will now be installed to /usr/local by default.
-
-The XM loader used to treat stereo samples as mono samples with the data for
-the right channel positioned after the data for the left channel. This
-generally resulted in an unwanted echo effect. This has been fixed.
-
-When playing XM files, specifying an invalid instrument would cause an old
-note on that channel to come back (roughly speaking). Fast Tracker 2 does not
-exhibit this behaviour. This has been fixed.
-
-The GCC makefiles used -mpentium, which is deprecated in gcc 3.x. This was
-generating warnings, and has now been fixed.
-
-In XM files, the length of a sample is stored in bytes. DUMB was assuming
-that the length of a 16-bit sample would be even. I had two XM files where
-this was not the case, and DUMB was unable to load them. This has been fixed.
-
-In order to accommodate the extra part of the version number,
-DUMB_REVISION_VERSION has been added. DUMB_VERSION has also been added in
-order to facilitate checking if the version of DUMB installed is sufficient.
-See docs/dumb.txt for details.
-
-As a last-minute fix, the XM "Break to row" effect is now loaded properly. It
-was necessary to convert from binary-coded decimal to hexadecimal (those who
-have experience with Fast Tracker 2 will know what I mean). In short, this
-means the effect will now work properly when breaking to row 10 or greater.
-
-DUMB v0.8 had faulty release date constants; DUMB_MONTH and DUMB_DAY were
-swapped! For this reason, DUMB_DATE should not be compared against any date
-in 2002. This note has been added to docs/dumb.txt and also to dumb.h.
-
-Please scroll to the end and read the release notes for the first version,
-DUMB v0.7. Most of them apply equally to this release. However, the
-non-portable code was rewritten for DUMB v0.8, so that point does not apply.
-The point about length not being calculated also applies to XM files.
-
-Enjoy :)
-
-
-****************************************
-*** DUMB v0.8, released 14 June 2002 ***
-****************************************
-
-Welcome to the second release of DUMB!
-
-In addition to these notes, please read below the release notes for the
-previous version, DUMB v0.7. Most of them apply equally to this release.
-However, the non-portable code has been rewritten; DUMB should now port to
-big-endian platforms.
-
-The main improvement in this release of DUMB is the support for XM files.
-Enormous thanks go to Julien Cugniere for working on this while I had to
-revise for my exams!
-
-There was a mistake in the makefiles in the last release. The debugging
-Allegro interface library was mistakenly named libaldmbd.a instead of
-libaldmd.a, meaning you had to compile with -laldmbd, contrary to what the
-docs said. Apologies to everyone who lost sleep trying to work out what was
-wrong! The reason for using libaldmd.a is to maintain compatibility with
-plain DOS, where filenames are limited to eight characters (plus a three-
-letter extension). The makefiles have now been changed to match the
-information in the docs, so you may have to alter your project files
-accordingly.
-
-The example programs were faulty, and crashed on Windows if they were unable
-to load the file. It was also difficult to work out how to exit them (you had
-to click the taskbar button that didn't have a window, then press a key).
-They have been improved in both these respects.
-
-I have now added a docs/faq.txt file (Frequently Asked Questions), which is
-based on problems and misconceptions people have had with the first release.
-Please refer to it before contacting me with problems.
-
-Thanks to networm for touching up the Unix makefile and writing the
-instructions on using it.
-
-Incidentally, today (Friday 14 June) is the Robinson College May Ball at
-Cambridge Uni. God knows why it's called a May Ball if it's in June. I'm not
-going myself (72 GBP, and I'd have to wear a suit, ugh), but with all the
-noise outside I shall enjoy pumping up the speakers tonight!
-
-
-****************************************
-*** DUMB v0.7, released 2 March 2002 ***
-****************************************
-
-This is the first release of DUMB, and parts of the library are not
-crystallised. Don't let this put you off! Provided you don't try to use any
-features that aren't documented in docs/dumb.txt, the library should be rock
-solid and you should be able to upgrade more or less without problems.
-
-Here are some notes on this release:
-
-- There is some non-portable code in this release of DUMB. It is likely that
- the library will fail to load IT files with compressed samples on
- big-endian machines such as the Apple Macintosh.
-
-- If your program ever aborts with exit code 37 while loading an IT file,
- PLEASE LET ME KNOW! The IT file in question has a stereo compressed sample
- in it, and the format is unspecified for this case (Impulse Tracker itself
- doesn't use stereo samples at all). I will need the IT file in question,
- and any information you can give me about how the IT file was created (e.g.
- what program). (If you don't get to see an exit code, let me know anyway.)
-
-- If your program ever outputs a line resembling "Inst 01 Env: 0,64 8,32
- 15,48" to stderr while loading an IT file, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! You have an
- old IT file (saved by an Impulse Tracker version older than 2.00), and
- support for such files is untested.
-
-- The length of IT and S3M files is not currently calculated. It is just set
- to ten minutes.