Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2
From: UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Music on Amiga is not the same
Message-ID: <89324.115732UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>
Date: 20 Nov 89 16:57:32 GMT
References: <4295@nigel.udel.EDU> <5697@wpi.wpi.edu>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 28


In article <5697@wpi.wpi.edu>, northrup@wpi.wpi.edu (Jim Northrup) says:
>
>My friends and I used to play BallBlazer on my old C64 (got rid of it shortly
>before buying my Amiga) --- we'd play for a few hours, and then spend the
>next several hours humming the theme music, often without realizing it.

#define ORAL_HISTORY_MODE on

BallBLazer was created by a guy named Peter Langston, a sort of Da Vinci
type guy.  He was on leave from Bell Communications Research aka Bellcore,
which is the place the the guys at Bell Labs think of as the far out
research guys.  Langston is the creator of many of the landmards of
Unix computing, and also an occaomplishedmusician.

One thing that makes the BallBlazer music good is that it is algorithmic---
that is, it doesn't really repeat exactly, though it stays within a tight
framework.

Langston discussed that algorithm, plus several others in a paper that is
published in the Confernence Proceedings of the Usenix Tech. Conference,
1986, PO box 7, El Cerrito, CA 94350.  There used to be a phone number
that you could call.  Langston's computer would answer and compose
a couple of tunes, just for you.



PS--Oral history means I am making this all up.