[TI-83+ BASIC] Non-MIDI music...is it possible in BASIC?

Delnar_Ersike · Post by **Delnar_Ersike** » Tue 13 Feb, 2007 11:24 pm

This has been plaguing me for months now: is it possible to program non-MIDI music for a TI-83+/84+ family calculator in BASIC? If it isn't, then my second question is: Is it possible to play two MIDI sounds in BASIC on a calculator VERY fast to achieve the effect of two notes playing at once?

threefingeredguy · Post by **threefingeredguy** » Wed 14 Feb, 2007 5:10 am

Not unless you write an App that can be called from a basic program.

Yes, I've done it. I made a piano program that supported two notes being played at once.

Post by **benryves** » Wed 14 Feb, 2007 10:37 am

If you can show me how to play MIDI on the calculator, BASIC or otherwise, I'd be interested...

I remember saying to tr1p1ea that he could nick the routines from QuadPlayer if he wanted to add tone generation to xLIB. QuadPlayer plays two notes at once by controlling both lines of the link port independently, so you don't have to resort to tricks for two notes. For four notes it runs two sets of pairs of timers, and picks a different one of these sets every other update to 'interlace' four-channel sound from two sets of two-channel sound.

A potential problem with BASIC sound is that any activity on the link port bothers the calculator (it appears to think something is being sent to it), so in a BASIC program it might decide to start trying to receive data. You can see this with most sound programs, in that when you exit the shell the homescreen "freezes" for a couple of seconds.

Delnar_Ersike · Post by **Delnar_Ersike** » Wed 14 Feb, 2007 3:42 pm

Well, I've worked with a funny combination of Omnicalc and xLib, and that is how I achieved the sound stuff. Omnicalc clears the parser hook detection of xLib, but xLib does not. This means if I enter Omnicalc, it will clear the xLib hook detection, but when I enable xLib, the Omnicalc parser hooks stay

. From here, I can put xLib's functions into my programs and, at the same time, put in Omnicalc's "real(31"s.

Post by **benryves** » Wed 14 Feb, 2007 3:53 pm

Oh, if Omnicalc can play sound then my last point is irrelevant.

Take a look at Wav Player 83+ - it might do what you need.

Delnar_Ersike · Post by **Delnar_Ersike** » Wed 14 Feb, 2007 11:51 pm

benryves wrote:Oh, if Omnicalc can play sound then my last point is irrelevant.

Take a look at Wav Player 83+ - it might do what you need.

Tried it before.

It is all right when you play short clips, but when you are planning to play a one-minute long soundtrack...

threefingeredguy · Post by **threefingeredguy** » Thu 15 Feb, 2007 12:01 am

Running a BASIC program generally requires that you leave the OS's interrupts intact, so unless you throw it on one of their interrupts, it's not going to happen.