Best 100% QB Music software ever

[Spotted Cheetah]

I just got certainly annoyed of that nobody pays any attention to me here at least at programming side. So here is the challenge: I made the best music software written entirely in QB ever! It is up to you to prove that this is not true! It is Pure QB FM Midiplayer, can be downloaded from my homepage, can be run with DOSBox, or anything FM capable. It was 100% programmed on a 30MHz 4.86 computer, to prove it's efficiency, download those parts from Island of Cheetah to hear it in the practice! (It worked on the 4.86 too)

The rules:

The program must be coded entirely in QBasic, you can not use any external libraries. The only thing what you may use is the basic library, but only for calling interrupts (My MIDI player not uses it)

It have to run smoothly with DOSBox: it must not require more than at about 66MHz to function.

Nothing else. The challenge is open for as long as you wish, for any program fitting to these requirements. It can use any music hardware what can be at least emulated (PC Speaker, FM, or any other Sound Blaster related ect.). It is a good point if it can be made working with retro games (Any way: by building in the source or by using a common fileformat ect.). So it not needs to be music player either, it can be sequencer, or whatever music related.

[Spotted Cheetah]

The MIDI player is nothing compared to what i could finish now!

I created an FM fileformat for QBasic what can be played with 7Kb of source code (Compiled form: 23Kb) virtually in the backround supporting looping. What is nice in it that i rewrote the MIDI player's system clock based version to output the MIDIs in this format! The result: the music sounds exactly the same way like in the original MIDI player, the file size is at about 90% of the original MIDI's. I tried it on for example a 6Kb long Final Fantasy VII MIDI: RED XIII's theme: it resulted in an 5Kb file, and the player made it looping infinitely appropriately (The encoder used the "loopstart" and "loopend" in the original MIDI to make the loop). Perfect for QB games I will put it up on my home page soon - beat it if you can!

[MystikShadows]

Where on your website can I download it from?

[Spotted Cheetah]

As i said it was NOT up then. It is up NOW in a temporary location :

(It was uploaded on the page now, you can find it in RC Software as QBasic FM Music player)
No bugs (Or at least "should not be"), this is the final version. I do not think that it could be made much better anyhow, maybe only minor changes. The file format is finalized, see the source code for details (It is described there).

I think it can be easily rewritten to FreeBasic if needed, look in the readme for details.

[Spotted Cheetah]

I completed the documentation and a little rewrote the converter since after the infinite loop end, the music should end (No problem for data after, just a waste of space). What i left out is mostly that the format does not support nesting conditional loops, and a few information about the special commands' behavior. In overall the specification is what the decoder describes

I found a more important bug in the converter: it not handled loops properly. I wrote a code it what made it remembering to the fact that a loop start location placed somewhere so it now appropriately renews all FM commands at the first tones on each channel after the loop start (So music will not mess up anymore in such cases).

(I ran hard testing this day, and only found the bugs i listed above. The player did not have to be changed at all! )


EDIT: Final version is up now, you can find it at RC Software as QBasic FM Music player! (I removed the temporary file now)