ASAP is a player of 8-bit Atari music for modern computers. It emulates the POKEY sound chip and the 6502 processor. The project was initially based on the routines from the Atari800 emulator, but the current version has a completely new original emulation core.

The project includes the following programs:

  • ASAP2WAV - portable command-line utility that generates WAV files (included in this binary package)

  • WASAP - tiny player for Windows (included in this binary package)

  • plugin for Apollo (included in this binary package)

  • plugin for foobar2000 0.9 (included in this binary package)

  • plugin for GSPlayer (included in this binary package)

  • plugin for MOC

  • plugin for Winamp (included in this binary package)

  • plugin for XBMC (included in this binary package)

  • plugin for XMMS

  • DirectShow source filter (for Windows Media Player) (included in this binary package)

  • POKEY sound emulation DLL for Raster Music Tracker (included in this binary package)

  • Java version of ASAP2WAV

  • Java applet

  • Java midlet

  • C# version of ASAP2WAV

Input file formats

ASAP supports the following file formats (determined by the filename extension):

SAP (Slight Atari Player)

The format designed for playing 8-bit Atari music on modern computers. All other formats can be converted to SAP. Atari SAP Music Archive (ASMA) is a single big collection of SAP files.

CMC (Chaos Music Composer)

Atari music editor from early 1990s.

CMR (CMC "Rzog")

CMC with modified bass sounds.

DMC (DoublePlay CMC)

CMC with 6502 routine executed at double rate of the original CMC.

MPT (Music ProTracker)

Atari music editor from 1990s.

MPD (MPT DoublePlay)

MPT with 6502 routine executed at double rate of the original MPT.

RMT (Raster Music Tracker)

Modern Atari music editor running on Windows.

TMC, TM8 (Theta Music Composer 1.x)

Atari music editor from late 1990s. The two file extensions are treated identically and played in stereo. TM8 means it’s a stereo (8-channel) music while TMC can be either mono or stereo.

TM2 (Theta Music Composer 2.x)

Modern Atari music editor.

How to install and use

ASAP2WAV

Extract asap2wav.exe to a directory of your choice (for convenience, this directory should be included in your Path environment variable).

Run the program from command line to see the syntax. Unless you specify the -o/--output option, the output filename will be constructed from the input filename with the extension changed to wav.

WASAP

Extract wasap.exe to a directory of your choice.

When you run WASAP, an "Open file" dialog appears. Simply select the file you want to listen to. WASAP is later controlled by its tray icon. When you hover the mouse pointer over the icon, the name of the loaded file appears. To open another file, left-click the tray icon. The other options are available in the menu which appears when you right-click the icon.

Apollo plugin

Extract ASAP_Apollo.dll to the Plug-ins directory of your Apollo installation.

foobar2000 plugin

Extract foo_asap.dll to the components directory of your foobar2000 installation.

GSPlayer plugin

Put gspasap.dll in the directory that contains the GSPlayer executable.

Winamp plugin

Extract in_asap.dll to the Plugins directory of your Winamp installation. It is also recommended that you remove other plugins that support 8-bit Atari music.

XBMC plugin

Put xbmc_asap.dll in the system/players/paplayer directory. This DLL can be used with XBox and Windows versions of XBMC. Your XBMC must include support for ASAP.

DirectShow source filter

To install: extract asap_dsf.dll, install_dsf.bat and uninstall_dsf.bat to a directory of your choice, then run install_dsf.bat.

To uninstall: run uninstall_dsf.bat, then delete the files.

DLL for Raster Music Tracker

Extract apokeysnd.dll to the directory which contains Rmt.exe.

Feedback

If you are interested in the ASAP project, please subscribe its mailing list. This list is for users and developers. Once you subscribe, you can post comments, ideas and questions about ASAP. They will be answered ASAP. ;-)

Use tracker to submit bug reports, feature requests and small code patches.

History

ASAP 1.2.1 (2009-05-08)

XBMC plugin and POKEY emulation DLL for RMT have been created. The midlet has a progress bar, tags display, subsong selection and better performance. SKCTL emulation has been slightly improved. Documentation has been converted from plain text to HTML.

ASAP 1.2.0 (2008-03-29)

Plugins for Windows Media Player and Apollo have been created. RMT duration detection has been improved. A bug in TMC to SAP conversion has been fixed. ASAP can be compiled as C#.

ASAP 1.1.0 (2008-02-17)

All formats supported by ASAP can be converted to and from the SAP format, using the file information window of WASAP or the Winamp plugin. Unlike SAP Maker, ASAP supports subsongs and TIME tags. POKEY emulation has improved a little. Bugs in the XMMS plugin, the foobar2000 plugin and the applet have been fixed.

ASAP 1.0.2 (2007-11-02)

TIME tags can be edited in the file information window of WASAP and the Winamp plugin. A few emulation bugs have been fixed. Some user interface issues in WASAP have been fixed.

ASAP 1.0.1 (2007-06-10)

Plugin for MOC (Music On Console) has been created. WASAP, Winamp plugin and foobar2000 plugin can edit AUTHOR, NAME and DATE tags in SAP files. Winamp and XMMS plugins format titles as specified by the player. TMC files are now played in stereo. A few minor bugs have been fixed.

ASAP 1.0.0 (2007-05-28)

This release introduces completely new 6502 and POKEY emulation. SAP files with samples are supported. ASAP can be compiled as Java - an applet and an experimental midlet have been created. Winamp, foobar2000 and GSPlayer plugins support silence detection and muting selected POKEY channels. Winamp plugin supports subsongs and Winamp’s equalizer.

ASAP 0.3.0 (2007-05-06)

This release adds support for AUTHOR, NAME, DATE and TIME tags in SAP files. Winamp, foobar2000 and the new GSPlayer plugin have configurable playback time for songs with no TIME tag and songs marked with LOOP. foobar2000 plugin has been updated for version 0.9 of foobar2000. XMMS plugin supports the TM8 extension.

ASAP 0.2.1 (2006-01-28)

This release supports TM2 (Theta Music Composer 2.x) file format. Compilation and installation on Unix-like systems have been improved. foobar2000 plugin supports subsongs.

ASAP 0.2.0 (2006-01-15)

This release supports stereo and 16-bit audio output (enabled by default). Compressed SAP files (for example Fractals.sap) are played correctly. Subsongs are supported in RMT files. There are new plugins: for XMMS and for foobar2000 version 0.8. WASAP supports Windows Explorer’s "Open with".

ASAP 0.1.0 (2005-12-31)

This is the initial release of ASAP (Another Slight Atari Player) - a player/converter of 8-bit Atari music for modern computers. ASAP provides high-quality, identical to the popular Atari800 emulator, emulation of the POKEY sound chip and the 6502 processor.

This release includes: ASAP2WAV - portable command-line utility for converting 8-bit Atari music to WAV files, WASAP - a tiny player for Windows and in_asap - a Winamp plugin. Currently supported input formats are: SAP (except for samples and stereo), CMC, CMR, DMC, MPT (without samples), MPD, RMT (mono) and TMC (mono).

People who have contributed to ASAP

Atari800 Development Team (http://atari800.sourceforge.net)

6502 and POKEY emulation used in 0.x.y versions of ASAP.

Zdenek Eisenhammer <pg@pinknet.cz>

Testing.

Piotr Fusik <fox@scene.pl>

Author and maintainer of ASAP.

Maciek Konecki <maciusk1@wp.pl>

Porting to C#.

Marcin Lewandowski <jaskier@atari8.info>

6502 routines for playing CMC, MPT, TMC and TM2.

Perry McFarlane <perry_m@fastmail.fm>

POKEY reverse-engineering.

Kostas Nakos <knakos@gmail.com>

Compilation for Windows CE.

Slawomir Sledz <slaves@scene.pl>

Testing.

Radek Sterba <raster@infos.cz>

6502 routine for playing RMT. Testing.

Lukasz Sychowicz <xray@scene.pl>

Windows icons. Testing.

Michal Szpilowski <miker@atari.pl>

Testing.

Grzegorz Zyla <gsunr@poczta.onet.pl>

XBMC plugin compilation and testing.