[sdiy] MAM book

[BrightBoy]

All:

Just a note that you can still get NOS (new-old-stock) 
2nd edition copies of the book from me until my stock runs out.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----

>From: Veronica Merryfield <veronica.merryfield at shaw.ca>
>Sent: Feb 14, 2011 12:57 PM
>To: synth DIY <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
>Subject: [sdiy] MAM book
>
>I thought some of you might like this text.
>
>Veronica
>
>
>      NOTES ON .PDF VERSION OF MUSICAL APPLICATIONS OF MICROPROCESSORS
>
>
>The Acrobat (.PDF) files in this directory contain the entire "Musical
>Applications of Microprocessors" text and graphics. There is a file for each
>chapter and also separate files for the front and rear matter. The chapter
>files range in size from 2MB to 9MB and the total of all 23 files is 102MB.
>Below is a list of points to be aware of before reading or especially printing
>these files.
>
>1. These files are SCANS of Xerox copies of the original book pages.
>
>2. Accordingly the text CANNOT be searched and any extractions will be graphic
>   images which can only be manipulated and edited with a bitmap editor such
>   as Paintshop.
>
>3. Please use the Acrobat bookmarks in each file and the index in REAR.PDF to
>   find things.  There is also a master bookmark file, BOOKMARK.PDF which
>   contains links to the individual chapter files.
>
>3. The scans were performed at 300 dots per inch, 1 bit per pixel, and .GIF
>   compressed which is a lossless compression method.
>
>4. With one or two exceptions, every page was scanned with a width of 5.99
>   inches and height of 10 inches giving a scan size of 1797 X 3000 pixels.
>
>5. You will note that the page size as reported by Acrobat Reader is
>   extraordinarily large (25 X 42in.).  This is because it assumes a graphic
>   resolution of 72 DPI while the scans are 300DPI and there seems to be no
>   way to change this.
>
>6. Thus when viewing, set either "Fit in Window" if your monitor is large or
>   "Fit width" if it is smaller.  Viewing at "100% size" is way too large.
>
>7. Accordingly when printing from the Acrobat Reader, PLEASE set it to "Reduce
>   oversized pages to paper size" and then set the desired paper size, either
>   Letter or A4 and Portrait orientation.
>
>8. Scan and print quality from a laser printer is at least equal to and in
>   many cases better than the Xerox copies I used to make available.  Many
>   errors have been edited out and Xerox artifacts deleted.  Still some pages
>   may not be perfectly straight since most of the originals were crooked and
>   alignment on the scanner was by eye (and very tedious).  I guess unbinding
>   an original book would have been better but they're too valuable - even to
>   the author!
>
>
>                                  COPYRIGHT
>
>And now a word about copyright.  Per standard author's contract with the
>publisher, all publication and distribution rights reverted to me after the
>book went out-of-print for 3 years.  While much of the material is dated and
>even quaint by today's standards, much continues to be a valuable resource for
>teaching and learning about music and sound synthesis technology.  Thus I'm
>not quite ready to throw it all to the winds of the Internet, at least not
>willingly.  So I only ask four things of those who acquire these files:
>
>1. Please don't copy and give away or sell this disk or post the files on a
>web site or bulletin board or file sharing service.  Likewise, please don't
>sell or give away multiple printed copies of the files.
>
>2. However permission is granted to reproduce up to ONE complete chapter for
>use in a classroom setting without prior notice or compensation. If, as a
>teacher, you wish to make more than that available to your students, please
>contact me at HAL_4096 at YAHOO.COM to work something out.
>
>3. When taking advantage of #2 above, please give credit to the author (Hal
>Chamberlin) and give the publication date, 1985.
>
>4. Permission is granted to quote or paraphrase reasonable amounts of material
>provided that a full bibliographic citation is included.  Below is the proper
>format (according to most style manuals) for such a citation:
>
> Chamberlin, Hal.  _Musical Applications of Microprocessors_, Second Edition.
> Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey: Hayden Book Company, 1985.
>
>The full publisher's copyright page including Library of Congress listing is
>in the file Front.pdf.
>
>
>Additional copies of this disk can be obtained from myself at the address
>below for $15.00 each in singles which includes first-class shipping to
>anywhere in the US.  Payment by check or money-order in US dollars.  Contact
>me by e-mail if you wish to use Pay Pal instead of a check or if you wish
>to purchase multiple copies.
>
>   Hal Chamberlin
>   212 Weston Street
>   P.O. Box 540031
>   Waltham, MA 02454
>   USA
>
>   hal_4096 at yahoo.com
>
>
>
>
>        A BRIEF HISTORY OF "MUSICAL APPLICATIONS OF MICROPROCESSORS"
>
>The first edition was written over a 3-year period from 1977 and finally was
>published in 1980 to excellent reviews by the computer and electronic music
>press (such as it was in 1980).  The second edition took a bit over 1 year to
>prepare and mainly involved updating Chapter 5 (Microprocessors), Chapter 9
>(to add coverage of MIDI), and adding Section 4 (Product Applications and the
>Future).  The second edition was published in 1985, 100 pages larger and $10
>more expensive, again to favorable reviews.
>
>Since then the field of computer music has grown so much that it would take
>thousands of pages to cover it in the same degree of detail. Moreover, the
>field is moving faster than a single individual can possibly write let alone
>learn about. Thus any future endeavors will either have to narrow the field
>considerably (modern PCs are hardly microprocessor systems any more) or focus
>on a small part of computer music technology.
>
>
>                      HOW THE FIRST EDITION WAS WRITTEN
>
>In 1972, long before the personal computer revolution, I was half owner of a
>4-man startup corporation exploring applications of the just released 8008
>microprocessor. For income we did contract engineering but for a long-term
>product development We settled on the then novel idea of a text editing
>machine with 1) a CRT display that would show an entire page at once, 2) show
>that page in 1:1 scale exactly as it would be printed, and 3) would use a
>floppy disk to hold the text data and software.
>
>The first prototype was completed in a year and a half and actually worked
>quite well although the display flickered badly from its 30Hz refresh rate and
>TV picture tube phosphor. Memory was a whopping 8K bytes (as 64 1K DRAM chips)
>for software and display storage and the 128KB floppy could hold 32 pages, one
>per track. Rejustifying a page took about 5 seconds which was fun to watch as
>text rearranged itself on the screen in real time.
>
>This proof-of-concept, which as far as I know predated even Xerox's often
>cited "first WYSIWYG word processor", landed us a contract with Hendrix
>Electronics, a manufacturer of text editing computers for newspapers, to
>develop a 4-terminal system using an IMP-16 processor from National
>Semiconductor. This ultimately became A.B. Dick's successful "Magna-SL" office
>system and I had the good fortune of being able to retain one of the
>prototypes in my home in 1976; something unheard of at the time.
>
>For me this was truly a case of the tool making the craftsman.  Throughout the
>development I used the prototype nights and weekends to first write my
>Master's thesis then later to found a hobby computing newsletter, write
>magazine articles, and finally start on my magnum opus in early 1977. I am
>quite sure that had this tool not been available, I would have never gotten
>into writing.
>
>The text for the first edition was written over a 3-year period on nights and
>weekends.  Productivity was about 1 page per day of finished, edited text
>which was submitted to the publisher on over 600 double-spaced pages from the
>"daisy-wheel" printer the system used.  Floppy disk capacity had grown to 360K
>on single-sided 8-inch disks and it took six of them to hold the text. Block
>diagrams and other representative drawings were hand-sketched on grid paper
>then given to the publisher to be put into final form by a draftsman.
>
>The many graphs, waveforms, spectral plots and such however were drawn by a
>different computer - a KIM-1 6502 microprocessor trainer kit. This was
>interfaced to a daisy-wheel printer which had the interesting capability of
>being able to position the printhead randomly in 1/120" steps and move the
>paper randomly in 1/96" steps. A custom BASIC program was written for each
>drawing and by positioning the head and paper then printing the "period"
>character, accurate plots up to 17x22" in size could be made. The interpretive
>BASIC programs were very slow however and took from a couple of hours to
>compute and draw a basic waveform to a couple of days to compute and make a
>detailed spectral plot. The publisher then took those drawings, added labels,
>and reduced them photographically by as much as 10 times to produce the
>high-quality plots in the book. All told, about a year was spent on the
>drawings.
>
>Then there were galley sheets and proofreading (all of the text was rekeyed
>ino typesetting machines from the printed pages I supplied), then finally
>production, distribution, and sales.  Over 10,000 copies were ultimately sold
>which was considered good for a technical book that was not written to be a
>textbook.
>
>Text and drawings for the second edition, which began 4 years later in 1984,
>were done basically the same way with the same, now ageing, equipment. That
>took only one year and the result is what you see here.
>
>
>                         WHY CD-ROM DISTRIBUTION?
>
>Ever since this book went out-of-print and available inventories were sold
>out I have made Xerox copies available to all who wanted them at the book's
>original retail price of $39.95 (plus shipping). I guess with inflation it
>should have been more but then the printing quality wasn't as good either.
>
>Anyway, of that $40, $25 went for copying costs (412 double-sided pages plus
>punching) and a 3-ring binder big enough to hold them. Then there was shipping
>for 9 pounds (4 kilograms) which is really substantial when sending out of the
>country. Naturally it was a hassle buying the binders, getting the copying
>done, inserting the pages, and packing the boxes. I did several batches of 10
>each over the years and despite the complications, was glad to do so.
>
>As mentioned in the last chapter, the declining cost of digital storage is the
>single most influential trend in computer technology since it began in the
>1950s.  Its many times stronger and more important than even the famous
>"Moore's Law" of chip technology.  In the ten years time since "Hal's Copy
>Shop" started, electronic distribution of the book has gone from "impractical"
>to "How else?".
>
>Even when stored in the most inefficient format possible (scanned images), it
>all fits onto 1/6 of a 30 cent disk that I can make while washing dishes! If I
>like, it can be put onto a business-card sized disk to hand out at dinner
>parties. And if that's too big, it would even fit on a single SmartMedia or
>other flash card although not quite as cheaply.
>
>Some more mind-boggling facts.  "Musical Applications" is 810 pages which is
>about 3 times the size of an "average" book. That means that scans of about 20
>average books would fit onto a 30 cent CD/R at a cost of about 1.5 cent each.
>A DVD disk holds about 7X more for 3X the cost and there's talk of blue laser
>DVDs that hold 4 times again as much (560 books) on the horizon. In other
>words, a library that would have taken up all of the wall space of a decent
>sized study can now fit on a handful of disks that physically cost no more
>than a good meal at McDonalds. And with high-speed Internet access and on-line
>storage, there's not even much point in keeping those disks around in one's
>home. Then there's recorded music. We do indeed live in interesting times!
>
>
>
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