TwelveToneToyBox
PreliminaryPage
TWELVE-TONE TOY BOX RIDES AGAIN!
Resuscitated to just barely conform to current Java standards in 2008,
TwelveToneToyBox still has some of the lousiness it had when I first
wrote it in 1997. If you navigate away from it, the only way to use it again
is to quit and restart your browser.
The comments on minimum capabilities which follow reflect issues from 1997.
The following minimum capabilities are strongly recommended forviewing the applet:
***Java
browser
***audiocapability
***high video:
**big enough to see the rectangle below(625 width, 400 height)
**in 16-bit color
**variable-sizefont
technology with Helvetica and Times fonts or good font
substitution (TrueType, PostScript, and ATM can all handle this)
**fast
processor
**lots of memory, and, where applicable,a large
memory partition for your browser (e.g. in the
GetInfo box in the Mac Finder)
**Fast network connection (you will be downloading over 4
0 Java class files, 12 audio files, and19 pictures into your Java environment)
****a sense of wonder**** |
My fancy Unix workstation bombs on the applet.Check your Java console forX11 exceptions associated with "setFont". TTTB calls for many differentcomputed sizesof Helvetica which your host system software must supply. Try using an X-windowsmanager with PostScript fonts or TrueType.
The applet is slow. Sorry.Java is anemerging technology, and even by today's standards it's a slowmemory hog. MacintoshSystem 7 seems to run the applet slower than Windows 95, even on faster machines, andI suspect this means that MacOS 7's overall use of time is suboptimal. The applet uses bothlock coordination (for pre-emptive multitasking environments like Win95 and Linux) and explicitprocess yielding (for co-operative multitasking environments like MacOS and Solaris), andin theory it should run fine on any of them. I've personally tested it successfully onlyunder MacOS and Win95.
I can't run two instances of theapplet in two browser windows. This is a deliberatedesign choice to get aroundthe slowness of Java. TTTB uses many workarounds to run faster in less memory.Allowing multiple instances would require a slower design that would use much morememory. Your system software might also fail, if two instances of TTTB were totry to play sound at the same time.
I left the TTTB page and returned to it andgot an error. Your browser wanted to create a second instance of TTTB. Seethe previous paragraph.
I don't like having to come back andstart over again to load the other sound set. The sounds take up a lot of memory,and I'm trying to conserve on that. I thought of downloading both sets and giving youa button to choose which set to use after the appletis up and running, but the memory requirements of that would further reduce thenumber of machines on which TTTB would even load. Try the high sounds first,and if the applet works ok that way, try to be satisfied with that, okay?
It still won't run. If you can copy thefull contents of a Java console to an e-mailerand mailit to me, maybe I can fix it.
Some other quirk occurs. If you inform me, perhapsI can help. |
