Ultrasound MIDI JukeBox
=======================

I'm releasing this program largely in response to seeing Gary Maddox'
Juke Box Ultra!  I wrote it about two weeks ago, but didn't feel that it
was worth my time to make it available to the public domain, but after
seeing JBU, I thought, "Heck, mine is about just as good, and maybe
better in some respects."

The program is entirely keyboard driven.  I've never taken the time to
learn how to program the mouse.  I don't think I've even taken the time
to learn how to properly program in DOS.  But as long as the final
product works, who cares about peculiarities in my coding, right?

Anyway, I started to work on JukeBox when I wanted something that would
play MIDI files continuously to lull me to sleep at night. I did most of
the programming in about four hours, and I then spent another four hours
tonight polishing it off.  I wrote the program in QuickBASIC, since it's
the first programming task I had to do in ages, and, of course, I wanted
to make it easy on myself.  I have a $500 MicroSoft C compiler installed
on my hard-drive, but the only programming I've done in C was a
molecular simulation that I wrote two years ago (or was it three?).
Needless to say, I was very rusty, and those braces and semicolons
scared the daylights out of me.  My algorithmic design skills are still
intact (biochem hasn't destroyed those, yet!), but my coding has gotten
rather flimsy.

But enough about *how* I came to program JukeBox.  Let's take a look at
*what* I programmed.  First of all, I didn't spend any time one
decorating the display.  I have no patience for that sort of activity.
When you start the program, you'll be greeted with grey letters on black
(or whatever your default screen colours are), and that's all you're
going to see.  If there are any .mid files in the current directory,
they will be listed.  If not, just hit [D] and enter a new path.
Preferably, the path should be the full path, but you may enter it
relative to the current directory.  For example, say that you started
JukeBox in \misc\stuff, and want to play MIDI files in \misc\music.  You
may enter the new directory as \misc\music or ..\music.  I hope I'm not
stating the bleeding obvious.

Once a list of MIDI files are on the screen, you can use the cursor keys
to move your finger (the '>' character) around to point at various
files.  Hit the spacebar to select or deselect the files that will be
played.  The files that you have selected for play will be marked with
an asterisk (*).  If you hit the [M] key, your finger changes to an
equal sign '=' and you can drag songs around to adjust their order of
play.  The ones that are listed first are played first.  Hit ENTER to
hear your selection.

Here are the rest of the keys and their functions:

[T] - toggle the selection status of all files
[S] - sort songs alphabetically (SHIFT- for reverse)
[R] - toggles repeat flag (if YES, then selection will repeat over
      and over, until you interrupt it)
[P] - lets you specify the parameters for PLAYMIDI when it is
      called
[A] - selects all files for play
[ESC] - quit

I think that's about it.  The program is pretty self-explanatory.

If you like the program, and would like to send me some of your surplus
cash, then, by all means, don't let me stop you.  But I'm not going to
force anyone to pay for this program.  I'm not even going to ask.  It's
free, so enjoy.

[ But the pathologically philanthropic can still send cheques to:
        Phat Tran
        81 Lennox Cr.
        Kitchener, ON
        Canada N2N 2P5                                          ]

If you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can
use my snail mail address, or my Internet address, which I'll
give below.

Phat Tran
ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca