ASAP is a player of Atari 8-bit music for modern computers and mobile devices. 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 original emulation core.

Input formats

ASAP supports the following file formats:

SAP (Slight Atari Player)

Designed for playing Atari 8-bit music on PCs. 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.

CM3 (CMC "3/4")

CMC with modified pattern length.

CMR (CMC "Rzog")

CMC with modified bass sounds.

CMS (Stereo Double CMC)

Stereo CMC.

DMC (DoublePlay CMC)

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

DLT (Delta Music Composer)

Atari music editor from 1990s.

FC (Future Composer)

Atari music editor from 1990s.

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 stereo (8-channel) music while TMC can be either mono or stereo.

TM2 (Theta Music Composer 2.x)

Modern Atari music editor.

STIL (SAP Tune Information List)

This isn’t a music format. It’s a text file that contains cover information and comments for many music files. This format is identical to C64 STIL. STIL.txt is distributed with ASMA (see above).

You can find some example files in examples.zip.

For viewing Atari pictures check out our sister project RECOIL.

Ports

ASAP runs on Windows, Linux, in web browsers and mobile devices. This remarkable portability is possible thanks to the Ć programming language.

ASAP includes the following programs:

  • plugins for Windows/Linux players: Audacious, VLC, XBMC, GStreamer

  • plugins for Windows players: Windows Media Player, Winamp, foobar2000, XMPlay, Apollo, GSPlayer

  • plugins for Linux players: XMMS, MOC

  • add-on for Windows library BASS (for AIMP and other players)

  • asapconv - portable command-line converter

  • WASAP - tiny player for Windows (desktop and mobile)

  • POKEY sound emulation DLL for Raster Music Tracker

  • Windows Explorer extension - shows and edits metadata

  • AIRASAP - simple desktop player in the Adobe AIR technology

  • AndroidASAP - player for mobile devices

  • Java midlet - player for mobile phones

  • Flash player - for web pages

  • Java applet - for web pages

  • JavaScript player - for web pages

  • Silverlight player - for web pages

  • MetroASAP - experimental player for Windows 8

  • ASAP2WAV - command-line converters to WAV files implemented in Java, C#, JavaScript, Perl and D

  • simple command-line players implemented in C/SDL, C# and D

To play the music on an Atari 8-bit, convert the music to an Atari program (XEX) using asapconv, WASAP, Winamp, Apollo or XMPlay.

There are other projects which use ASAP:

How to install and use

asapconv

Extract asapconv.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. The -o/--output option selects the output format and is mandatory.

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 which contains the GSPlayer executable.

Winamp plugin

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

Windows Media Player plugin

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.

XBMC plugin

Put xbmc_asap.dll in the system/players/paplayer directory.

XMPlay plugin

Extract xmp-asap.dll to your XMPlay directory.
If you want to use the "File information" window (to edit tags or convert between SAP and other formats), assign a shortcut to it from XMPlay options.

DLL for Raster Music Tracker

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

Audacious plugin

Extract asapplug.dll to lib/audacious/Input inside the Audacious directory.

VLC plugin

Extract libasap_plugin.dll to plugins/demux inside the VLC directory.

Authors

Piotr Fusik <fox@scene.pl>

Creator and main developer.

Atari800 Emulator Developers (http://atari800.sourceforge.net)

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

Zdenek Eisenhammer <pg@pinknet.cz>

Testing.

Maciej Grzybek <grzybson@pigwa.net>

Fixed an overflow in the Silverlight port.

Jakub Husak <jakub.husak@gmail.com>

SAP fingerprint calculation. asapscan fixes.

Henryk Karpowicz <henkar@poczta.tygrys.net>

CMC routine modified for the CM3 format.

Maciek Konecki <maciusk1@wp.pl>

Porting to C#.

Marek Konopka <konop11@poczta.onet.pl>

6502 routine for playing DLT.

Daniel Kozminski <daniel.kozminski@gmail.com>

Ideas.

Jerzy Kut <mono@atari.pl>

FC format.

Marcin Lewandowski <jaskier@atari8.info>

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

Ian Luck <il@un4seen.com>

Guided development of XMPlay and BASS plugins.

MarOk <marok7@os.pl>

CMS routine fix.

Adrian Matoga <epi@atari8.info>

COVOX information and test files. Testing. Porting to D.

Perry McFarlane <perry_m@fastmail.fm>

POKEY reverse-engineering.

Kostas Nakos <knakos@gmail.com>

Windows CE testing.

Mariusz Rozwadowski <ramosc64@o2.pl>

Suggested CMS, CM3, DLT and STIL format support.

Slawomir Sledz <slaves@scene.pl>

Windows Mobile setup. Thorough testing.

David Spilka

6502 routine for playing CMS.

Radek Sterba

6502 routine for playing RMT. Testing.

Lukasz Sychowicz <xray@scene.pl>

Windows icons. Testing.

Pawel Szewczyk <ripek@op.pl>

Windows setup graphics.

Michal Szpilowski <miker@atari.pl>

Testing.

Grzegorz Zyla <gsunr@poczta.onet.pl>

XBMC plugin testing.

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.