Welcome to Gbloink!
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In order to run Gbloink! you need the following files somewhere Windows can find them ie. in a gbloink directory with the gbloink executable or in your windows directory.

gbloink.exe
callback.dll
midivbx.vbx
vbrun200.dll
scales.dat
chords.dat

All of these files are included in the distribution. 

Is also a good idea to have this file : readme.txt, and if you give a copy of Gbloink! to your friends, you'll need to include the license.txt file too.

Installation
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I prefer to just unzip Gbloink! into its own directory. I know you might have some of these files elsewhere - the three files midi.vbx, vbrun200.dll and callback.dll can live in a windows system directory - ... but I don't guarantee that I've included the most recent versions, so be careful not to overwrite versions of these files that currently work, with ones that don't. 


Quick Troubleshooting tip (Just in case nothing is happening)
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Gbloink! generates music by talking to Windows' Midi Mapper. However, many people don't have this set up. If you are already running Midi software that uses this, such as an existing sequencer, you're likely to be OK. If you aren't, then you may need to get a midi driver suitable for your system. A good clue that you don't have a driver installed is if you get an error window appearing when you first run the program. If this happens, hit OK and use ctrl-alt-delete to kill off the Gbloink! program. Then go install a suitable driver.

In Windows 3.1 go to the Control Panel and look for the Midi Mapper. This should tell you if you have a driver installed. If you can't find a Midi mapper option, you don't have one. You can probably find one on your Windows or soundcard installation disks or the Internet. (Try searching for +Midi +driver +Windows (your version) +(your soundcard) +download, on Altavista.) Then install using the Drivers part of the Control Panel. If you have multiple Midi devices, pressing the "Device" button within Gbloink! should cycle through them.

Gbloink! was developed in Visual Basic 2 (!) on a 486sx(!!) and it runs fine under Windows 3.1(!!!) with an 8-bit soundblaster pro (!!!!). It also runs on newer configurations, such as under Windows95 and on higher spec. machines. If Windows Midi is set up correctly it drives any external MIDI synthesizer or soundcard. 

Gbloink! uses the completely unguaranteed, but apparently OK, callback.dll and midivbx.vbx from Microsoft. 

What is Gbloink! ?
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Well, to start, what isn't Gbloink!.
 
Gbloink! is not a serious composition tool. 
- It's a very silly composition tool... 

Gbloink! is not a game. 
- It's a toy. Games have objectives, notions of winning and losing. Gbloink! has none of that. 

Gbloink! is not educational. 
- Don't trust us on major, minor, diminished and eastern scales. We just guessed 'em up. And don't think we claim Gbloink! has the power to demonstrate anti-chaos or self-organization just because so many seemingly chaotic worlds quickly fall into cyclic structure. Nor does it tell you anything about the n-body problem or the dynamics of real-world objects. :-)

Yeah, OK, but what is it? 
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Three balls bounce around the play area. When one collides with an object, it triggers a Midi note. The pitch of that note depends on where the ball is and the scale (chromatic, major, minor, eastern, pentatonic or diminished). Each ball triggers notes on a different Midi chanel. You can control the speed of the ball, the instrument, the volume, whether the chanel is solo or polyphonic and scribble obstacles all over the playing area. Just start clicking and things will become obvious in seconds ... there's more fun in finding out for yourself.


But a couple of hints would be nice. Pleeeeeze!
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Click on everything! 

Most things do something, but sometimes you won't notice the effect until something else happens. 

To start, click on the text messages within the black "play area" until
they disappear. Click some more and see how you can draw coloured blocks. 

Then hit "start" to see the balls bounce.

Now you notice what happens? When the coloured balls hit the blocks, they fire off a Midi note. The higher up the play-area, the higher the pitch of the note.

Practice putting down blocks, to direct the balls into the mid-region of the play area. That's where the nicer sounding notes are on most synths. The "Border" and "Seed" buttons, quickly put some blocks into the area.

Useful hint : the right button on the mouse undraws blocks; handy for releasing the balls when they get trapped.

Once it starts to sound a bit musical, try changing the scale from Major to Minor to Pentatonic etc. to hear these different styles. 

Now, these coloured strips - you see them all over the place - change different things. WHERE you click along the strip matters. Click on them to change the speed of the balls, the Midi instrument, and the volume each plays. If you experiment, you should find out what each does easily enough. Even though it looks confusing to begin with, you'll discover that once you have the hang of it, this is way more zen than dragging virtual sliders around.

More precisely : 
The colour of the strip corresponds to the ball it controls.

The leftmost strip affects the speed of the ball. Click on the left of this strip to slow the red ball down. Click on the right of the same strip to speed the red ball up. The same for the green and blue strips mutatis mutandis.

The second (centre) strip, controls the instrument which the ball triggers. At the far left, you select voice 0; at the right, voice 126. This is consistent with the General Midi standard which most soundcards and synthesizers use. You will see the number of the instrument appear in the box next to this bar.

The third (right) bar controls volume. Lefterly is quieter, righterly is louder. The actual volume appears in the box on the right of this bar. Click with the left mouse button in this box, to start the volume fading automatically. Click in this box with the right button to fade upwards.

Happy Now?

Um ... the slow, white ball doesn't seem to be making any noise. Why not?

Click on one of the buttons associated with the white ball. Now wait and listen. The white ball changes the key and / or transposes the notes played by all the other balls. To understand, try getting the balls into a repetative pattern, that you become familiar with. Then see the effect of the different white ball settings on this pattern. The white ball can also cause the scale to change, so shifting from Major to Minor to Diminished can be automatic. Used sparingly this is a powerful effect. Go crazy and the music sounds .... well pretty daft.

What about the vertical bars on the left of the play area?

These let you transpose manually. If you get good at this you can play music in a more controlled way. You might even consider learning to play along with other musicians.

But there's no visual feedback. 

Generations of trombonists, and fretless bass players weep for you.

And the green strip on the right of the play area?

Master clock speed, to speed up or slow down the whole thing. Not really a performance feature. More to make Gbloink! usable on machines ranging from 486sxs to super-fast pentium MMXs.

I'll leave you to discover the other tricks for yourself. Practice a bit and you'll find you have enough control to feel that you are really improvising the music. 

Have fun.

philip 


Shareware Stuff
---------------

Gbloink! is shareware. You know the score. Play with Gbloink! If you don't like it, clear it off the hard disk. If you do, we'd like a token of your appreciation. But we won't be sending FAST round to your house if you decide to be a complete b******d. Instead, we have a couple of incentives up our sleeves for the more pro-social of our users.

The deal is this. We reckon there's a good twenty quid's (20.00) worth of fun in the copy of Gbloink! you have now. So if you want to register it with us follow these simple instructions.

To register and receive a registered user's copy of Gbloink! by e-mail :

Send a cheque for 20.00 (pounds) from the UK, or $30.00 from the US and rest of the world. Remember to include your e-mail address with the order. Yup. We just e-mail you a compressed file with the registered user's edition + other documentation. Cheap! Yeah, but that's what you pay for.

To register and receive the registered user's copy by snail mail (post): 
As for e-mail except it costs a little extra for a disk and paper, postage etc. We're rounding it up to 25.00 for UK, and $35.00 for everywhere else. Remember to include your snail address (you know what I mean) but give us your e-mail one anyway. That way we can send you lots of lovely junk-email about future upgrades etc. 


A brief summary
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Registration, and registered user's copy by e-mail, in the UK : 20.00
Registration, and registered user's copy by e-mail, in the rest of the world  $30.00
Registration, and registered user's copy by snail-mail, in the UK : 25.00
Registration, and registered user's copy by snail-mail, in the rest of the world:$35.00

Where to?
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Curently (3rd of October 1998) make cheques payable to my collaborator

John Anthony

Address :
20 Montfort Gardens
Hainault
Essex
IG6 2TB
United Kingdom

Note this is in the UK so make sure your postage covers it.

If the date at the beginning of this section looks a bit stale, have a look for a slightly later version of Gbloink! on the web site.

http://members.xoom.com/synaesmedia/ 


What You Get - The Goodies Bit
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What does the registered user's copy of Gbloink! give you that you don't currently have?

A bigger play area. Hence scope for more variety and longer patterns.

10 Balls including the red, green, blue and white balls you are already familiar with
+ the golden horde - up to 5 gold (yellow) balls 
+ the deep blue destructo-ball that bounces round the screen destructively reconfiguring the play area 

A variety of angles for the red, green and blue balls, finer control over obstacle shapes and sizes + more.

  
Finally
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Hope you enjoy using Gbloink! as much as I do; I'm always interested in hearing what people have done with it. Thanks to Gisel, John, Jane, Paul and everyone else who has contributed advice, inspiration, and criticism.

Philip Jones 1998
