Spectre GCR Manual Manuals - Atari Documentation Archive

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Mac Mode
with sound. Even the "Sound Manager", the part of the Mac's operating
system that does sound, was switched off. (This caused a few compatibility
problems; some programs insisted on using it even though it
was off, and crashed, such as World Builder Adventure Construction
Set programs.)
Starting in version 1.9F, sound was allowed. It's selected from the
main Spectre menu page; as of this writing, you can select either Sound
Off (as with the original Spectre), Sound at 11 khz, or Sound at 22 khz.
If you want sound, use the 11 khz mode; the 22 khz mode is not yet
tuned up properly, and sounds like a cat being tortured.
The Mac's hardware generates sound automatically without the
CPU having to fiddle wi th it, as a spin-off from the disk controller (of
all things). The Atari hasn't got it so easy; the CPU has to work itself
silly to make MacSound.
Hence, you're going to notice that when Mac Sounds are playing,
the system seems very slow; that's because up to half of the CPU is
generating sound, leaving only half for you.
This slowdown only occurs during the time that sound is actually
being played, not all the time. You've only enabled the possibility of
sound happening from the Spectre menu page.
Generally this works okay. For instance, a system Beep slowing
the system down doesn't matter at all. It doesn't work out as well in
games that use sound a lot, especially high speed, reflex-type games ­
one instant, while sound is being played, the game is very slow, then it
speeds back up. Games like this are probably best played with sound
cut completely off.
There is a very popular program called SoundMaster which lets
you "attach" digi tized sounds to certain mouse functions. For instance,
the "Beep" on the system I'm typing this on now sounds like a sonar
"pin-n-ng-g-g". You'll want to get Sound Master; you can download it
from most any BB5, Compuserve, or GEnie, along with some digitized
sounds for it; they're a lot of fun.
One thing, though: disk access and SoundMaster don't mix, even
on a real Mac. So don't attach a sound to Disk Eject or Disk Insert,
okay?
Version 1.9F used to slow the system unnecessarily and force the
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