AMPLE by phone

This feature is a collection of contributions made in response to our request for the experiences and comments of those who had used any of the telephone-based telesoftware services which support AMPLE.

Bernie Dawson

I first got a Music 500 about a year before the Music 5000 was born. Because of the difficulty in understanding the manual I left it to gather dust until the upgrade was available.

In the meantime I had discovered about modems, and that Music 500 tunes were available for downloading on Prestel. The idea of communicating with another computer via, and receiving programs down, the telephone cable definitely appealed - I would be able to learn AMPLE from working examples.

Since then I have acquired over 200 files, some amazing, others less so; and, yes, I have learnt a lot in terms of programming and musical knowledge.

What then is required?

1) A modem. This is an interface between the computer and the phone cable.

Mine is the simplest possible type - a 1200/75 baud modem without any frills like auto-dialling. It plugs into the RS423 socket at the back of the BBC and into the phone socket on the wall. The disconnected phone then plugs into the back of the modem (it can be used even when the modem is switched off). The numbers 1200/75 refer to the rate at which data is received or transmitted by the modem. I have not tried to understand this in any great depth - it works for me and that is all that matters.

2) Controlling software. This allows the computer to talk to the modem.

It can be ROM-based, but as I haven't got a ROM expansion board and ROM sockets are therefore precious, mine is disc-based and it works fine.

What do you do?

Set up the controlling software on your BBC, ensure the modem is switched on, and dial the relevant number. You will then hear a high-pitched tone which indicates the remote computer is ready to establish communication with yours.

You then press the magic button on the front of the modem and with any luck messages start to appear on the screen!

What is available?

1) Firstly, if you join Prestel (and within that, Micronet) you can access Music City. This is devoted to BASIC/Music 500/Music 5000 tunes. It offers telesoftware, letters and comments, and hints and tips.

The quality of the music files is generally pretty good. Some files are free; others have a nominal charge (e.g. 50p) which I think is split between the owner of the music copyright, Prestel, Micronet, and the programmer. Music City originally promised great things but the frequency of updates has lapsed badly since the end of June.

2) Other bulletin boards. These are where you phone up a computer which is probably in someone's bedroom. They can be of two types depending on the host computer's controlling software and modem. Some are just like Prestel with viewdata-type pages; others require scrolling software to communicate. I cannot access some bulletin boards because I cannot alter the transmission/reception rates of my modem.

The ones I have used have been a source of great enjoyment, some of them have so many files you are spoilt for choice!

What does it cost?

Ah! The $64,000 question. My modem was about £50. The disc to control the BBC was £12. My Prestel bill is about £40 a quarter. This is made up of a subscription, charges for access time, and any fees for downloaded files. My phone bill is about £40 a quarter too.

The last two figures obviously depend on how long you are 'on line', and when you phone (like any phone bill).

I personally feel it is money well spent. It augments the Music 5000 which is a great hobby. And what else would I do with the money - get drunk down the local?

Bryan Anslow

I have downloaded programs for the Music 500 as well as the Music 5000 - so far, about two and a half 80-track ADFS disc's worth.

This has mainly been from Prestel, (formerly from Musiclink, and now, to a lesser extent, from Music City) although Dudley College of Technology also provides a fairly good source of Music 5000 and Music 500 programs.

There are several others I have tried including Seahaven bulletin board ('The Firm'), who formerly ran Musiclink, the various 'Musictel' bulletin boards and Ampnet. It seems that whenever you contact one board they have the phone numbers of others. There is an amazing amount of Music 500(0) music out there, and I have only just scratched the surface.

In addition to the music programs, all of the boards have some sort of hints and tips, questions and answers, and news and features.

There is invariably some form of 'registration' required for these bulletin boards. This ranges from the trivial, requiring only your name and the area you are calling from, to some which require full name, age, occupation, inside leg measurement, etc. Of course there is nothing to say that you have to be truthful.

The quality of downloaded music from all of these sources is variable, but then, 'one man’s meat...', I suppose it is all a matter of taste.

Of course, music from Prestel always comes out more expensive because, not only do most of the programs have a download fee, but there are connection charges as well. In contrast, any downloads from DCT or any of the bulletin boards are free, apart from the cost of the phone call.

In terms of transmission problems, Prestel comes out by far the best, followed by DCT. The other bulletin boards all use scrolling software and XModem which doesn't seem so reliable, and the 'Bad Program' message is often more the rule than the exception.

It is a pity that the programs are not transmitted in text format because, although it would take longer, any errors could be seen and corrected with a text editor. AMPLE isn't too forgiving of an odd 'bit' in the wrong place.

Graham F Firth

Of all the current databases AMPLE DCT is about the best. To get access to any copyright music you now have to pay a very modest subscription as they have to pay (like AMPLINEX) a fee to the MCPS. They have a good hints section. AMPLE DCT1 is on 0384 239944 (Viewdata).

Music City is a total waste of time - it is updated very infrequently, and now that Prestel is charging for off-peak access, it is not worth the effort of even looking at it.

Wimbledon BBS (01 542 3772), Mitcham MBBS (01 648 0018), and ACMB Musicworld (0932 245593) have all got some good Music 500 & Music 5000 programs on them.

All of us old timers sigh with nostalgia when anyone mentions Musiclink - the best Music 500(0) database. It was part of the Tubelink section of Viewfax, itself a section on Prestel. Unfortunately Viewfax pulled out of Prestel and it all closed down (incidentally owing a lot of contributors money for Telesoftware that they had supplied and Viewfax sold).

One of the editors of Musiclink - Alan Baker - now runs a bulletin board for his local computer club (The Firm on 0273 513872). One day we hope that Musiclink will return on there - but it won't be for quite a while as Alan's wife is very ill and Alan doesn't have the time to set it all up.

One beneficiary of all these bulletin board databases is of course British Telecom, as it is very easy to run up incredible bills when logged on, even on a local call - BE WARNED!

Leslie Whalley

Music City, like most of Micronet, is a disappointment. It offers a selection of music files at reasonable cost, but this is seldom updated. Hints and tips are very rare. The only section which is updated regularly is the one devoted to members’ comments, but many of these are extremely trivial. It is not worth subscribing to Micronet just for Music City.

Incidentally, as a protest against Micronet's decision to apply time charges except after midnight I have just succeeded in getting them to send me a bill for 4p!

AMPLE DCT, operated by Dudley College of Technology is much better, and improving. Access to the main database is free, and an interesting selection of non-copyright music and hints is available. For £3.50 you get a year's access to their Maestro section which provides a further selection of copyright music files. It is well worth accessing DCT if you can afford the phone calls.

Pete Christy

Touted by Micronet as a replacement for the late, lamented MusicLink, Music City has proved a bitter disappointment. The updates were initially abysmal, and are now just very poor. The software quality has been poor, and there have been none of the excellent tutorials that were the hallmark of MusicLink.

On the plus side, it's only a local phone call for Micronet members.

DCT is a very good database - if you can get on to it! The software is good, and there are good technical tutorials and hints and tips items. After the demise of MusicLink it seemed to be a temporary haven for former MusicLink contributors, though I see some of the old familiar names are starting to discover AMPLINEX (hooray!).

On the minus side - for most people it's a long distance phone call. Also, thanks to the wonderful quality of British Telecom's telephone lines it regularly takes several attempts to get a line good enough to allow you even to log on! This makes downloading a tedious, time-consuming and expensive business. No wonder British Telecom's profits are up!

Roy Atkins

I live in Holland so I suppose I would not be expected to use such services as Music City or DCT - but I have in fact contacted DCT on a number of occasions using my Miracle Modem WS2000.

I think the DCT service is well organised and the quality of the software is quite high, in fact some of my favourite AMPLE pieces have come from there. However, for me it is a very expensive business to use DCT from Holland, especially to browse. Also, my system has hung on the last byte several times; I have not yet found out why.

Patrick Black

I use Music City, via my Micronet subscription, and I like the basic idea. My only criticism is that the music is pretty much of the same genre (perhaps I should contribute something else!), but the pieces themselves provide plenty of ideas for programming.

The problems with Music City are not due to the organisation itself, but to Prestel/Micronet.

Updates don't appear often enough - at the start of September, Music City promised to chase up files they'd sent to Micronet and which hadn't yet been published. As I write (early October) Prestel/Micronet have still not put them up.

Another cause of discontent is the time charge slapped on by Prestel last July. Access time used to be free during the off-peak telephone times. Now it costs 1p per minute during this time, and more during office hours.

Micronet areas (including Music City) are still free from midnight to 8am, but I for one don't find these times convenient, and for various reasons (largely the 'take it or leave it' attitude of Prestel and Micronet) I flatly refuse to incur time charges. My usage of Prestel and Micronet has thus decreased enormously, and so I no longer access Music City very often.

I fear that British Telecom and Telemap will kill off useful areas like Music City as domestic subscribers vote with their feet and leave the system.

Jim Brook

I log on to DCT about once a month and find them very useful and friendly; in response to a question they produced a 'worksheet' for me on changing mixes very quickly. Currently, there seem to be problems with updates, though. Maybe college holidays are a snag in this regard. I use BBCSoft's Modem Master software - only 12 quid or so and an absolute bargain - miles better than Commstar and a third of the price.

I also log on to Music City about once a month, but as well as update problems, the style is a bit juvenile. Maybe it has to be - after all, most of the readers will be young, I imagine ('young' is under 45, by the way). I should add that DCT is only a local call to me, and I never log on to Micronet till after midnight when there are no on-line charges, just the cost of the call.

Pete Holdroyd

I use Music City (occasionally) and DCT. The latter has recently started a section for copyright music, after coming to an agreement, like AMPLINEX, over the payment of royalties. I have paid the £3.50 annual fee, and will be logging on in the near future.

I find little difficulty in down- or up-loading to bulletin boards - the Musictel setup has been a rich source of Music 500(0) material - and if AMPLINEX were to be made available by modem, I for one would be logging on.

On the other hand, could AMPLINEX be put on DCT, as another section? A thought!

Editor's note:

Are there any other members who feel that AMPLINEX by phone would be a good idea? Bear in mind that an average AMPLINEX disc contains something like 175K of information - it would certainly be more expensive than sending a disc through the post.

Finally, we have some information provided by the organisers of the DCT and Music City services themselves.

David Reed of AMPLE DCT writes:

The DCT database is run by myself, as part of an educational project providing teaching materials about viewdata. It is currently edited from Cumbria by Alistair Johnson.

The DCT database (and thus AMPLE DCT) can be called by anyone with a modem capable of 1200/75 standard viewdata format: if they can call Prestel, they can call us. It is a public access system with no passwords (unlike Prestel and Music City) except for the copyright music 'Maestro' section. This section makes us probably the only 'bulletin board' that legally offers copyright music.

Because our system is free and unsponsored, we cannot pay our gallant contributors - we rely completely on their generosity. As well as newly-contributed music we have permission to carry the old MusicLink files: MusicLink were Music City's predecessors and, I don't think anyone would deny, probably the best on-line AMPLE area of all. We are also still interested in receiving Music 500 (AMPLE BCE) files.

All of our non-copyright music is freely available: it costs only the price of a phone call to the West Midlands. Also free are our tips pages and 'worksheets' - step-by-step guides to aspects of AMPLE programming. We aim to put up 5 or 6 new pieces of music every fortnight.

To generate sufficient pennies to pay the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, we charge a modest subscription to the private 'Maestro' section on the DCT database, for which callers require passwords. The recent increases in prices for Prestel subscribers and prices that Music City charge (e.g. 50-75p per tune) compensate for the long-distance call that many of our users have to make.

Callers can leave messages for public display on the DCT database, but on a second, pilot system callers can list music members and mailbox them directly as well as instantly place public messages.

I must emphasise that AMPLE DCT is not run as a business. It is part of a broadly educational system that attracts 600+ calls a month on one phone line. We will be making more lines available early next year. Next year we intend to start selling AMPLE DCT discs - this is to make our material more widely available and to give at least some recompense to our generous contributors.

Hybrid Technology will shortly be publishing a disc of AMPLE DCT music, most of which is Alistair Johnston's remarkable original material.

Included on this disc are some examples of the output of both AMPLE DCT and Music City.

From AMPLE DCT we have an AMPLE program which displays some sample screens from their database (F.DCTdemo) as well as a seasonal piece of music programmed by David Reed himself ($.Snowman). From Music City we have a more traditional festive offering of Christmas carols played on the instruments of your choice ($.Carols) as well as an extract from the latest Music City music disc - 'Rat In Mi Kitchen' by the band UB40 ($.RatInMi).

The Music City music disc is reviewed in the News and Reviews section of this issue and the AMPLE DCT music disc will be reviewed in AMPLINEX 009.