Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!cs.umu.se!dvljhg From: dvljhg@cs.umu.se (J|rgen Holmberg) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: NoiseTracker - where did it come from? (was Re: NoiseTracker on GEnie) Message-ID: <1990Oct16.170448.26255@cs.umu.se> Date: 16 Oct 90 17:04:48 GMT References: <3380@corpane.UUCP> <1242@kriski.toppoint.de> Sender: news@cs.umu.se (News Administrator) Organization: Dep. of Info.Proc, Umea Univ., Sweden Lines: 98 In article <1242@kriski.toppoint.de> kris@kriski.toppoint.de (Kristian Koehntopp) writes: >sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >> I see a lot of people CLAIM that >>they are commercial, but I see no proof. But from reading the doc files >>that come with the programs, I do see evidence that they are freely >>distributable. does anyone have any proof one way or the other, rather >>than just rumors and hearsay? I am really interested in this. > [deleted] >In early 1987 the program "SoundTracker", written by Karsten Obarski, was >published by EAS. As far as I know, EAS does not longer exist. This program >ist definitly not pd. > >"NoiseTracker" is a cracked, hacked and completly modified version of >SoundTracker. You can take it as a coproduction of most of the infamous >german cracker guilds. The following features were added to NoiseTracker >(there may be more): 32 instruments support (instead of 16), sample >recorder, playable module saving, set restart point, copy/cut/paste, >insert/delete, revised play routine (about 5 times faster), directory >"window", integrated preset editor, packed songs, dynamic replay speed, more >sound effects, pattern position jump, pattern break, filter control etc. The german crackers wrote soundtracker( ~15 versions at least ) and master soundtracker. Noisetracker was written by Mahoney and Kaktus ( swedes ) originally. > >These changes were incorporated into NoiseTracker by different people. There >are many different flavours and streams of NoiseTracker. The person I asked >could not even tell me the most recent version number, it must be somewhere >between 3.4 and 5.0. My source said "Karsten Obarski had the idea and >defined a format. But NoiseTracker has nothing to do with SoundTracker any >more. And I don't know anyone, who can claim to have a copyright on this >program." You may judge yourself if you take NoiseTracker as pd or not. Noisetracker is out in different versions. 3.0 is older than 2.1 which gives you an idea of the chaos. Newer versions seem to have their own names like Protracker etc. Noisetracker IS copyrighted by agreement with Karsten Obarski. > >There are compatible programs: "SoundFX" is a SoundTracker with real gadgets >and minimal changes in internal formats. SoundFX was written by Christian >Haller and was to be sold. According to my source it never came out since it >was too much like SoundTracker inside. SoundFX was used in-house by REline for a time but the program was poorly written compared to others and had no future. > >SID-Mon I by TurtleByte is also a Tracker-lookalike. It was written by some >dutch person (R.van Vliet ???). An improved version, SID-Mon II is about to >be released in a few months by TurtleByte. It is able to load scores >produced by SoundTracker, NoiseTracker and its derivatives. It also has some >nasty bugs of Version I fixed. SID-Mon II was written by Michael Kleps. SIDmon II seems a lot better than I but TFMX or MARKII is better and more versatile. Music assembler may be worth checking out since the play-routine is much better. > >Octalyzer was written by Armin Sander and is sold by "Verlag Mayer" in >germany. I do not know anything about compatibility between SoundTracker and >Octalyzer. > >SoundTracker and NoiseTracker are single big Seka-isms and are trying to >ignore the ROM-Kernel-Services as far as they can do. I know of versions of >NoiseTracker that crashed upon the existence of fast memory or the presence >of a fixed disk in system. This has been fixed in newer versions. > >I seems that cracker guilds are deeply involved into the development of most >of these programs. My source claimed some of the persons mentioned above to >have well known three letter acronyms. I can not verify or prove this. They are all old demo-coders. Most of them have quit the "scene" completely. > >Disclaimer: I do not own an Amiga any more. My informations relies >completely on the reports of one single person and my own observations of >about 2 years ago, when I had an Amiga. I can not tell you where to get a >copy, legal or not, of any of the programs mentioned above. I know that >software piracy is illegal, so there is no need to mail me this fact. > >Kristian > [deleted] I have just added some info if someone is interested. I saw someone wanting hard evidence that ST, NT etc. is pirated. This is impossible to send via net mail or news. I know for a fact ( trust me on this one :-)) that soundtracker ( the original version ) was copyrighted. Master soundtracker and Noisetracker 2.0 were also copyrighted. The others are not protected by a copyright notice but are usually PD. They may however be illegal since they resemble st/nt too much. In some cases even the source is almost identical. The only way to be sure is to try it in a court of law in your country. Hope I added additional disarray to the debate ;-) Jorgen