
Dump It! - MIDI System Exclusive Data Transfer Software
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What's this 'ere, then?

There are many synth patches out there in netland, and most are in 
files of the form of system exclusive data. This program will load up 
these files, and transmit them via the MIDI Out port, enabling you to 
audition the patches they contain (although only if you have the 
correct synths etc obviously!)

It should run on most Atari computers, and under replacement operating 
systems such as MagiC (recommended). This version at the moment 
doesn't really like MultiTos, so I don't recommend running it under 
this. I haven't tried Geneva. Oh yes, you can rename DUMP_IT.PRG to 
DUMP_IT.ACC and it'll run as an accessory. It will run in all 
resolutions, including ST-Low and ST-Medium, though it's much nicer in 
ST-High and above, so if you're looking for an excuse to buy a decent 
monitor...

Memory is requested dynamically - the program itself uses about 
40Kbytes, but you can load files of any length up to the memory 
capacity of your computer.

There is not much checking that goes on with files - basically when 
you send a file, the program looks through it to find a sysex start 
message (a byte of 240), and then dumps out via the MIDI out all the 
bytes it encounters until either an Eox message or the end of the 
file. All other bytes (headers and other stuff) will be skipped. The 
display gives an indication of what the program is doing when sending.

The 'chunks' value shows how many separate sections of sysex data that 
the program has encountered, and the ID value shows the manufacturer 
ID of the sysex message (although I've only included the more popular 
manufacturers - I couldn't be bothered to type the rest in! :)

Both of these values can obviously be misinterpreted when a non-sysex 
file is loaded, as they will not be sysex messages, but there's 
nothing I can do about that.

The program is quite useful in conjunction with other programs under 
MagiC - for example, trying to get the new patches into a 
fully-fledged editor/librarian, such as EMAGIC's (highly recommended) 
SoundDiver, as currently it doesn't have sysex import functions - 
(stop press: it does now, as of April 95). Just load the two programs 
and use Dump-It to transmit the data to your synth and then request it 
back into the librarian, and save it from there.

It will also load a file passed to it from a command line or dropped 
onto its icon.

That's it! Small, neat and functional. It is completely free, so 
please give it to your friends and upload it anywhere you like! :)

- Ben Hall, May 1st 1995

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