garton@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Bradford Garton) (02/08/90)
Check for "Looching.tar.Z" at the purdue archives! I think it's in pub/next/source. "Looching" is a program which generates pseudo-NewAge (or perhaps it's the Real McCoy!) music using the Motorola DSP chip. I wrote it because I like to have long droning sounds going while I stare at error messages, read news, move windows around on the screen, etc. One of the considerations that went into the design of the program was to make it place as light a load on the main CPU as possible, so that "Looching" can be hidden away to do it's droning without interfering. The main process typically sleeps for 10-20 seconds at a time (this music is *not* what one might consider "up-tempo"). I had lots of fun writing it, plus it tends to soothe my frazzled nerves after a long day of dealing with Those Things. There's some parameters you can play with using the snazzy Interface-builder built Friendly User Interface, plus all source is included for those interested in seeing the musickit (and DSP unitgenerators) in action. NOTE: In order to be able to put the main CPU to sleep, I didn't use the NeXT "Orchestra" scheduler -- life would have been simpler if I had, but some days I just get a real kick out of doing things the hard way. Let me know what you think -- I'm intrigued by the idea that music can be distributed via ftp (didn't even have to dub any cassettes!). And if it manages to keep just one person from becoming a Texas-Chainsaw-Axe-Murderer after driving home behind some bozo going 11 mph in the fast lane, then my life is complete... Have fun! Brad Garton Music Department -- Columbia University brad@woof.columbia.edu PS -- If you can't reach the archives with ftp, send me e-mail and I'll ship you a uuencoded version (~37k).