(assuming George Costanza disposition here...) The Japanese have done it,
my friend; the Japanese have done it! They've been secretly ripping
PCE/TG-16 music for play in emulators, and eventually in WinAmp (someday).
Hi, guys. I stumbled across Manbow-J's website yesterday just to see if
anything was new, and lo! and behold! There is a new format for PCE music
called HES!
Here's the website: http://www10.freeweb.ne.jp/computer/manbowj
The HES format is still unsupported in any music player, so each game has a
small binary stub and a DOS batch file with which to convert a PCE ROM (so,
YES, you have to have the original ROM for it!) of the game into a smaller
PCE ROM containing only the music code and a player, playable in a
PC-Engine emulator. I've tried it, and believe me, _nothing_ feels better
than having access to all the songs in Ankoku Densetsu (I do own the
complete HuCard)!!
Pardon me for getting carried away with myself, but now that PCE music
ripping is well under way, I propose y'all check out the fruits of the
labours of our Japanese friends, and work on some WinAmp plugins, or
something. :-) Here are some files to get you started:
http://www.proc.org.tohoku.ac.jp/befis/download/nezplug/test/hes_source.zip
http://www.proc.org.tohoku.ac.jp/befis/download/nezplug/test/hes_source2.zip
The program BINCUT2 is also included and is necessary. Advance songs
through the I and II buttons. I also suggest checking out the program
NEZPlug, which may someday support PCE and GB music (It already supports
the NES, MSX, and SMS/GG).
#http://www.proc.org.tohoku.ac.jp/befis/download/nezplug/#
Enjoy!
--
Chris Covell (xxxxxx@direct.ca)
http://www.zyx.com/ccovell/
Solar Wars (NES) Homepage!