Playing .sqt on real speccy with D80
May sound strange but I want to play old music from SQ-Tracker (same applies for SoundTracker) on a real speccy. You know a real analog device generating saw sounds different to any emulator. Here is how I achieve this.
What is SQT
SQ-Tracker may compile the music in two ways. First is a compiled song with player routine (cca 1200 bytes long) or as a data only. The SQT to be find on net are usually only a data to be played with something like Ay_Emul. According to manual to SQ-Compiler the playing routine should be initialized at LOAD CODE address and should be relocatable. Play should start at Init+48. Silent is Init+32.
"Conversion"
First I thought attaching the player with SQ-Linker to .sqt file would be enought, but I was not successful (but it should work!). What helped me out was a utility tracker2ay from WOS, that is in Ruby. This needs a small modification, as new ruby changed some spec:
#$0.replace(File.expand_path("./init.rb"))
$__0 = File.expand_path("./init.rb") # added
alias $__0 $0 # added
alias $0 $_0 # added
tracker2AY contains the binary data for SQ-Player and creates the TAP file out of it.
TAP you may insert into D80 image on PC via MDOS3Tool (runs under Wine). Then copy the image to 3,5" DD floppy
dd if=image.d80 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512
and insert into D80. Load sqt_player.
LOAD *"sqt_player"
break and change line 20 to LOAD *. RUN.