-hard plAYer- is an
8 bit tunes hardware player, which allows you to listen to the same melodies you could listen to in some of the 80's home computers and videogame consoles. In next versions It will also work as MIDI synthesizer. It's audio sound generator porcessor is the General Instruments AY-3891X the same one that was used in vintage computers like the Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Spectrum ZX, MSX, Oric, or Colour Genie, and consoles like the Intellivision or Vectrex. The YM-2149 was a Yamaha's licensed version of this processor.
It can play songs saved in .YM file format on a standard SD or MMC card. These .YM files can be obtained wiht most part of Amstrad CPC, Spectrum ZX or Atari ST emulators. Other vintage computers audio file formats can also be converted to .YM standard. So you only have to capture the melody of your favorite videogame, or demo with one of these emulators save it into the memory card, and play it with -hard plAYer-. You can also use one of the many trackers that exist for these computers to compose your song with the emulator. It has a graphical interface wich allows you to control it's different options and also to explore the content of the card to select the song you want to play.
These are some of the features of this audio player:
-music is played by a real AY-38912 Programable Sound Generator
-nearly everything is controlled through a monochrome 128x64 LCD graphical display with a 4 push-buttons interface
-can play unpacked and deinterleaved YM files, stored in a SD or MMC card formatted in FAT32
-has a tiny file explorer to move through the folders to select the song to play
-simple audio looping options
-playing speed can be adjusted
-the independent channel volume knobs allow the user to control the A,B,C channels volume
-a MIDI input port is available to use the board as MIDI synthesizer ( it has also a MIDI output port )
-stereo RCA or stereo mini jack output connectors
(Date: 2008/2009)
http://tolaemon.com/hplayer/-.-
YM File formatWARNING: If you're not programmer, you can skip that page. It contains technical information and it's totally unusefull if you only want to listen YM tunes.
YM file are specific file to use with ST-Sound or any ST-Sound based player. You can find some ".ym" files for the amiga but both formats are really different. If you're looking for a great collection of real ST-Sound YM file, go to the biggest YM database on the internet.
YM file format is a "multi format". Basically, YM file are made to produces some classic ATARI chip tune. But YM can produce some strange and custom music too. ...
http://leonard.oxg.free.fr/ymformat.html
