Bob Ord

Since I am not a keyboard player but a guitarist, and having been told by Hybrid Technology that the only way to print out AMPLE on a stave was to use the Music 4000 keyboard, I decided to write this program for those who do not have a Music 4000 keyboard but who would like to print out their music in staff notation. Shadow RAM is required.

Shadow RAM

The program is written in BASIC, uses a mode 0 screen and may have to load a large AMPLE program. Use is therefore made of Shadow RAM. The Shadow RAM call is set for the BBC Master and B+ and occurs at the beginning of the U.ASP file. Users of other types of Shadow RAM will have to alter this to suit their needs.

Suitable printers

The AMPLINEX Staff Printer consists of two BASIC programs with a fast machine code printer driver for Epson compatible printers with the 640 dot-addressable bit image mode.

The screen

ASP's screen consists of three windows: one in the top left corner used for various control functions, one in the top right corner for information and one across the bottom half of the screen which displays the stave.

Initially the program asks for an AMPLE filename, directory and drive number: the latter two have defaults of $ and 0 if the Return key alone is pressed.

Pressing the Return key alone when the filename is requested will display a catalogue of the selected drive in the information window.

Loading an AMPLE file

Once an AMPLE file has been entered and loaded, the AMPLE words in the file created using the Staff editor (i.e. having the comment %STAFF) are displayed in the information window.

Single or multiple word option

Single or multiple words may be printed. The program asks for the number of words if the multiple option is chosen. These are printed out in the order that the names of the words are entered.

Screen or printer option

Either screen only, or screen and printer, output may be produced. The screen output is useful for checking that you have the correct word name before committing anything to paper.

Escape key

Pressing the Escape key at any time will reset the program to the initial state waiting for an AMPLE file name.

Pressing the Control and Escape keys together will exit from the program.

Errors

All operational errors are reported in the information window.

Related files on this disc:

U.ASP - AMPLINEX Staff Printer main program

U.ASP2 - AMPLINEX Staff Printer secondary program

U.ASPcode - AMPLINEX Staff Printer machine code printer driver