Music Construction Set

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Votes: 8
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Comments (4)
sparkle - 18/03/2016
fantastic. anybody have or made additional music files? can we get an .atr or two uploaded here?
rave.N - 09/03/2016
No documentation here yet? MCS is better off cracked, it uses DOS and loads and saves music files, so fast SIO (obtained thru cracking) is desirable, besides this download may be corrupt (sector 42...) and the copy protection is too sensitive, that my emulator requires either XL OS or 52K RAM OS/B when I know it should load in 48K OS/B, other EA games with similar protection (e.g. Hard Hat Mack) are also needing weird 52K on my emulator.

OEM disk is heavily encrypted and scrambled up with bad sectors, it's hard to believe standard DOS is in there somewhere but she is, and I never thought I'd see a File version of MCS but I found a beautiful one 34786 bytes long (found a file version too of MULE requiring XL/XE, never thought I'd see that either and it's tested good).

Like I was saying, MCS requires DOS so it needs a newly formatted floppy disk (real or virtual .atr) with DOS.SYS v2 or v2.5 written first, DUP.SYS can be left out, have the cracked file version of MCS written to the new disk as named AUTORUN.SYS, then there are 4 demo songs each song having 2 files so copy over the 8 files from the OEM disk.

a DOS directory of the OEM disk reveals all the music files, each song named X has a file X and another file X.MUS - the demo, obtained by NOT pressing Return to begin, instead waiting 30 seconds, plays these 4 songs in this order: CANON, INVENT, BUMBLE, CANON, INVENT, TURKEY, repeat. The four are well known classical pieces. The other leftover OEM song files are junky, and are ignored by the demo mode.

Inside MCS, click on the floppy disk icon, then use the command "C" to get a disk directory. Type LOAD <name>, hit return twice to get back to the music screen, then click on the piano icon to play that music file; you can hear all OEM tracks this way.
rave.N - 07/03/2016
This disk image is probably corrupt, look in sector 42 it says "THIS IS A COPIED DISK!". Exactly like MULE, both MCS and MULE are Electronic Arts programs, and it's already been shown the MULE disk is corrupt (plays a code worm) so it is most likely this disk appears to run is a trick, and will probably display code worm behavior too. Worms probably wrote these texts onto sectors 42, and wrote other tricks as well.
eppy2000 - 25/08/2015
This was more fun to actually compose on than to transcribe preexisting music. After listening to the included samples, I thought how fun it would be to play my favorite my favorite pop, classical, or showtunes. But I gave up quickly because all that work to put in complex notes only yielded a couple of seconds worth of music at a time! But the program was quite enjoyable and easy to use.

One of my gripes? With several competing music programs, free or commercial, every one of them used their own proprietary format. My other gripe? Needing the proverbial (fully) Epson-comptabile printer to print out the music. (As I had an XMM-801 printer, I was none too happy that it was not as Epson-compatible as promised, so all I got was garbled junk.)

Screenshots

Music Construction Set atari screenshot
Music Construction Set atari screenshot
Music Construction Set atari screenshot

Information

GenreMusic / SoundYear1984
LanguageMachine LanguagePublisherElectronic Arts
ControlsJoystick, KeyboardDeveloper[n/a]
Players-CountryUSA
Programmer(s)

Harvey, Will

LicenseCommercial
Graphic Artist(s)

[n/a]

Medium Disk
Sound

[n/a]

Rarity
Cover Artist(s)[unknown]Serial103502
Dumpdownload atari Music Construction Set Download

Disk

Music Construction Set Atari disk scan Music Construction Set Atari disk scan Music Construction Set Atari disk scan Music Construction Set Atari disk scan Music Construction Set Atari disk scan Music Construction Set Atari disk scan

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