Hello everyone,

HVSC Update #39 is now available for you to download
at www.hvsc.c64.org

 After this update, the collection should contain 27,087 SID files!

 This update features (all approximates):
     1946 new SIDs
      275 fixed/better rips
        3 fixes of PlaySID/Sidplay1 specific SIDs
       12 repeats/bad rips eliminated
      230 SID credit fixes
      470 SID model infos
       41 tunes moved out of /DEMOS to their composers' directories
       11 tunes from /DEMOS/UNKNOWN identified  :-)
       (1 goes back due to bad credits)
       14 tunes moved out of /GAMES to their composers' directories
       
 We're once more proud to present another monster update, consisting of
 overall over 2100 SID tunes, 275 of those being fixes.
 With this release we also finally managed to completely unload our huge
 queue of unreleased tunes to the public. There are still a couple of
 problem tunes left which we'll hopefully manage to fix for the next HVSC
 update, but basically that's all all there is.

 We've got the music compo entries from the following parties in this pack:
 Breakpoint 2004, Sidwine 3, Floppy 2004, Forever 5 and 7D4

 Further there are a lot of real, unmodified BASIC rips in this update:
 They are basically RSID tunes, hence they need Sidplay2 or a real C64.
 To make them easier to spot we have added _BASIC to the filename.

 Another bunch of classical tunes from the first minute have been added
 to HVSC:
 o Peter Weighill's Master Composer collection
   /DEMOS/UNKNOWN/Master_Composer/
 o the Master Composer example tunes, most likely done by the author of the
   program, Paul Kleimeyer.
 o the Brøderbund Music Shop tunes, uncredited, but with high likeliness also
   composed by the maker of the tool, Don Wilson.


 Main Artists featured in this update:
 DRAX                    Yip
 Agemixer                Jan Albartus
 Amadeus/Attic/Meka      Compod
 Dwayne Bakewell & Kent Patfield (Pearl)
 Richard Bayliss         Glenn Rune Gallefoss
 Kristian Røstøen        Bzyk
 Comer                   Cosowi
 Cycleburner             Hein Holt
 Jeroen Breebart         Jeff
 Klax                    Kordiaukis
 Mitch & Dane            Replay
 Sad                     Shapie
 Surgeon                 Taxim

 NEW Artists featured in this update:
 Android                 Commodore (BASIC classics)
 Paul Kleimeyer -------> (the maker of Master Composer!)
 Tonal Teapot            4wd-soft
 Amadeus/Slash           David Bain
 Benno                   Black Dove
 Debby Cruz              Freeze/The Force
 G-Fellow                Ewen Gillies
 David Green             Gummibeer
 Krwiak                  Lio
 Alexander Kern (Mac)    Mr. Wig
 Stephan Parth (Nata)    Rashka
 Sam/SCCS                Speedcracker
 TheFatman               Steven Judd (Wyndex)
 Tinnitus -------------> (Asterion & Trompkins)
 Oskar Törnros           Steffen Wagner
 Nick Williams           Yoshi
 Don Williams ---------> (the maker of the Brøderbund Music Shop!)




 There are a couple of things worth mentioning in this update:

 o The latest release of Sidplay2 not only contains some generic emulation
   improvements, but it also introduces the possibility to play back real
   BASIC tunes without the need to painfully convert them to machine code,
   which often resulted in rather doubtful playback quality.
   We ripped and re-ripped quite a lot of BASIC tunes for this update, most
   of which now reside in the /Commodore directory. There are the classic
   example tunes of the C64 users manual, some example tunes from "the bible",
   the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide. Also take a peek into the /GAMES dir
   of this update, there are a couple of classic BASIC tunes too, such as
   Sword of Fargoal, Telengard or the 1983 Stack Computer Services BASIC
   games! To make them easy to spot we added a _BASIC suffix to all the
   filenames.
 
 o After several requests, both from inside and outside the HVSC team, we
   decided to integrate Peter Weighill's old Master Composer Collection into
   HVSC. Many of these tunes bear a lot of nostalgic value, so it would be a
   shame not to have them. Be aware that due to a bug in the libsidplay1
   libraries they might sometimes lock up your sidplay1-based player.
   They work fine on Sidplay2 and on a real C64, though.
 
 o The HVSC crew got a new member: We all want to welcome back Wilfred Bos,
   the author of the fabulous ACID64 Player for users with hardware based
   SID cards such as the Hardsid or the Catweasel. Wilfred was a HVSC member
   of the first hour, but had to quit four years ago due to real life
   priorities. Welcome back, Wilfred!

 o While talking about Wilfred, he just recently released a new version of
   ACID Player, upgrading the version number to 2.0.
   New features:
   - Cycle based emulation of 6510 CPU, 6526 CIA and 6569 VIC-II chip
   - Cycle based playback of SID data
   - Support for sample playback of RSID and C64 Program files
   - Support for playing PRG and PC64 files
   - Simulation of space bar and joystick fire buttons to skip intros
   - Support for restoring screen size
   - Added 6510 CPU performance indicator
   - Support for skipping silents of beginning of tunes
   - Better resetting of SID chip
   - Faster voice bar animation
   - Fix for frequency adjustment to avoid warble sounds in some tunes
   - Many other improvements

   Download it here:  http://www.acid64.com

 o Sidplay2w has also seen another update, as already mentioned above.
   An upgrade is recommended if you want to fully enjoy the candies of this
   update.
   New features:
   + support for multi-subtune BASIC tunes (libsidplay2)
   + sprite stealing emulated (libsidplay2)
   + p00 support (libsidplay2)
   + stereo mus to sid conversion (libsidplay2)
   * corrected instruction overlapping (libsidplay2)
   * CPU Debug improvements - same memory model, progress meter,
     option to enter power-on delay value

   Go get it now at http://www.gsldata.se/c64/spw/

   HardSID users get their DLL from the sidplay2 home page as usual,
   http://sidplay2.sourceforge.net. Here's a link straight to the downloads:
   http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=9266&package_id=69227

 o LaLa has completely rewritten his ripper tool SIDedit, which has now
   reached v4.02!
   It has some great new features, such as tag-coloring in the disassembly
   output and a fancy new button bar to make the usage of it even more
   convenient.
   As always, get it here:  http://lala.c64.org
   (It's in the SID related tool section)

 o Stefano Tognon has released issue 6 of his SIDin magazine. There's an
   interview with Jan 'Rambones' Harries inside, as well as some interesting
   articles about the new Asterion Tracker and the Padua Digi Organizer.
   Recommended lecture for productive people!

 o SID PC64 Winamp Plugin V2.0 released:
   Jakub Wozniakowski has done it, he finally updated his nice tool to be
   compatible with Windows 2000 and Windows XP!
   Want to play back your SID tunes on a real SID chip, but are too lazy to
   fiddle around with all the helper applications? Then this is probably
   something for you: Control your C64 through your PC running Winamp 2.x!
   Here's all you need: 
   o a PC64 cable (build one yourself or buy one through the various resellers.) 
   o Winamp 2.x 
   o The SID PC64 Winamp Plugin 2.0 , which includes a plugin for Winamp and a
     tiny client program that you have to load on your C64. 
   How does it work? 
   1. Connect your PC with your C64 with the PC64 cable. 
   2. Install Winamp 2.x 
   3. Drag and drop your favourite SID tunes into the Winamp playlist. 
   4. Load the client program on your C64. 
   5. Press Play on Winamp! 
   The SID files now get transferred to the C64 (takes about one second on
   average) and the client program on the C64 will take care of the playback.
   It's really that easy, not even a restart of the client is required if you
   want to play another tune. Just put 100s of files into your playlist, set a
   default playing time and let it run for hours! :-)

   Requirement: Win95/98/ME/2000/XP 

   Yep, it does work like a breeze on XP without any tweak packages or
   timeconsuming trial-and-error orgies, I do use this regularly!

   Roughly estimated compatibility: 90-95% (no digi tunes, no RSID tunes, no tunes
   that have PLAY=0)

   Get it here:  http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=8450

 o Here's a rather unusual announcement to all of you out there: We're getting
   lots of virus infected emails emerging from SID fans that obviously have
   our email addresses in their address books.
   For the first time in computer history the amount of virus infected emails
   have exceeded the amount of SPAM emails! Looking at the damage this causes
   on a global scale we plea to all of you out there:
   - Regularly update your Windows through the Microsoft website
     www.windowsupdate.com and get the latest security patches!
   - Get a virus scanner, and most of all, update it regularly.
     - A free and very good webbased scanner can be found here:
       http://housecall.trendmicro.com
       The only information they require is the country you're from, that's
       all.
     - A completely free virus scanner with almost daily internet updates can
       be found here: www.free-av.com
       This is a low resource consuming virus scanner, that despite being
       completely free for non-commercial users, performed
       pretty well in the recent comparison tests you can find on the web.
       Thanks for your attention!
 


