b$="cdefgab"
play"o5l16"+mid$(b$,1,1)

sofar, it works, and you can easily guess what it does
now the next channel!

play"o5l16"+mid$(b$,1,1),"o4l16"+mid$(b$,2,1)

this gives an Illegal function call

I tried it in NLMSX, Boblet in Openmsx ... confirmed bug?

the testing-crew at work:

[21:52] <AuroraMSX> this: play "l8o5"+mid$(b$,1,1), "o5"+mid$(b$,2,1) works!
[21:52] <AuroraMSX> this: play "l8o5"+mid$(b$,1,1), "l8o5"+mid$(b$,2,1) doesn't!

[21:56] <AuroraMSX> listen to this: b$="cd":play"o5l8"+mid$(b$,1,1),"o5"+mid$(b$,2,1)
[21:56] <AuroraMSX> and this: play "o5l8c","o5d"
[21:56] <AuroraMSX> the first one only plays a C on 2 channels!
[21:56] <AuroraMSX> instead of c and d!
[21:57] * boblet has quit IRC (Killed (NickServ (GHOST command used by b0bl3t)))
[21:57] * boblet has joined #msx
[21:57] * ChanServ sets mode: +o boblet
[21:57] <AuroraMSX> weirdness
[21:57] <boblet> cunthorse :(

where's weird-basic-guru nyyrikki when you need him?

talk about obfuscation!

b$="cafebabe":play"o2l8wolf_"+mid$(b$,2,1),"o4l8boblet"+mid$(b$,2,1)

Do I win that challange now?

Quote:

talk about obfuscation! b$="cafebabe":play"o2l8wolf_"+mid$(b$,2,1),"o4l8boblet"+mid$(b$,2,1) Do I win that challange now?

Only if you extend that weirdness to play "Mary had a little lamb" on 3 channels

wolf and MML? that'll be the day

hey, I never touch MML! And when I do, it bugs on me..

I've heard about this oddity before. Somewhere. Some time......Long ago.....

MSX-BASIC is filled with oddities...

... that's the stuff legends are made of ...

Quote:

where's weird-basic-guru nyyrikki when you need him?

Thank you, I take this as a complement.

Unfortunately at the moment I don't have time to check this out, but don't worry. Later I will. At the moment I'm quite a busy as I'm gonna be homeless after this week and I've not even packed any of my stuff yet. Does someone have any good RLE routine or something similar that could be used for packing home to warehouse?

I think that this "feature" is caused by temporary strings. As temporary strings usually are used only one time (like in PRINT command) they can be erased when next temporary string is needed. This is not valid for PLAY as these strings are converted to simultaneous sounds from MML. This is anyway just speculation... I'm not actually sure at all how the PLAY stack in #F975-#FAF4 is used.

Quote:

Does someone have any good RLE routine or something similar that could be used for packing home to warehouse?

First stack the big stuff and then squeeze the tiny stuff along with it Good luck moving, then!

Quote:

Quote: Does someone have any good RLE routine or something similar that could be used for packing home to warehouse? First stack the big stuff and then squeeze the tiny stuff along with it Good luck moving, then!

There is a quite old and well documented compression algorithm called F.I.R.E. Its compression ratio is impressive. The only problem is that there isn't any reliable decompression algorithm available so far.

I think Nyyrikki might be looking for a lossless type of compression ^_^

lossy compression works on old junk .. as there's nothing worth preserving

Quote:

[quote] Unfortunately at the moment I don't have time to check this out, but don't worry. Later I will. At the moment I'm quite a busy as I'm gonna be homeless after this week and I've not even packed any of my stuff yet. Does someone have any good RLE routine or something similar that could be used for packing home to warehouse?

Try the 'BIN' compression !