Updates to the Acceptable Use Policy

c. If you're linking to remote content of your own, or to content shared under a Free license, whenever possible, please also upload it directly to the discussion thread. This is encouraged even for large content, such as videos.

Ok, that's a sensible goal.

I went back and uploaded media to this AppleFritter blogpost about a music generator.  I had previously failed to upload the media when I originally created the blogpost, so it just had an off-site link to YouTube.   I think I just hadn't allowed enough time for the file to upload.

NOTE TO ANYONE UPLOADING MEDIA: Large files can take a long time without any visible signs of progress -- just click the NEXT button and wait as many minutes as required until the screen changes.  (The UPLOAD button didn't work for me, but the NEXT button eventually did.)

Question: I want to save/share the MIDI files from Ultima V for posterity, but the media browser doesn't support .MID files.  These are especially novel files because they were created before widespread adoption of  General Midi so the game's built-in player wasn't capable of performing them as-intended.  (eg: percussion is  inadvertently converted into arbitrary musical notes)  Should I just upload them in one giant ZIP file attachment, or is there a way of uploading .MID via the media browser?

Tom Owad wrote:

Uploads of files with uncommon extensions will remain an issue, though. There are security concerns with allowing all file extensions, although there is a module to allow it. Specifying every possible file extension is impossible for a site like Applefritter, but if you have a big project planned and need a certain extension, ask me, and I can add it. The alternative, like you suggested is to zip files before uploading.

Ooo...better still...I can capture and share recordings via the media browser, and put the MIDI files in a zip for academic interest and preseervation.

This is a much better approach because your average user won't be able to use the MIDI files anyway...but most users can play recordings of them.

Here's a summary/preview of what I intend to share...

[Edit: I'm also using this as an opportunity to practice how I would share these files.  It didn't work...please see note at the bottom.]

• In 1988, Lord British published Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny with an optional musical score.  If you owned a Passport MIDI Interface  you could configure the game to perform its music through an external synthesizer.  That was 3 years before General MIDI was adopted, so MIDI devices were not widely interoperable yet.  Consequently, Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny required the user to specify one functional MIDI channel and choose one musical instrument for each song.

That sounds really impressive for a computer game soundtrack...but it's especially impressive for an Apple II game, isn't it?  Well...hold on to your hat!

• In 1993, I investigated an oddity in the musical scores -- although it played through just one MIDI channel, with all parts sharing just one musical instrument for each song, the data contained ten distinct track numbers from the composer's mix.  That's weird.  Curious, I connected the MIDI cable to another computer and split those ten tracks back into ten distinct MIDI channels and assigned a distinct instrument to each track.  Based on its 1988-ish composition date, I assigned track 10 to a contemporary Roland drum kit and assigned distinct instruments to the other channels.  Holy cow, it was composed for a full orchestra and Roland Drum Kit!!

That's got to be the best hidden treasure...ever!

EDIT: Something is distinctly broken.  There were supposed to be two audio clips in this post.  They show up in the editor, but disappear upon clicking Save.

• MP3 files show up in the WYSIWYG editor, but disappear after clicking SAVE or PREVIEW.  MP3 files are playable from the editor.
• OGG files show up in the WYSIWYG editor, but disappear after clicking SAVE or PREVIEW.  OGG files are not playable from the editor, as the controls are grayed out.
• M4A files show up in the WYSIWYG editor, but disappear after clicking SAVE or PREVIEW.  M4A files cannot be edited or deleted from the editor...very strange.

In the previous comment, I tried to insert two playable audio clips...and it didn't work.  In fact, it was a terrible mess...

Problems with audio clips.png

Here's a partial-consolation, for now.  Because I can't seem to embed audio clips at AppleFritter, here are external links (shudder!) to external videos that contain soundtracks that illustrate the audio I was trying to share in the previous comment...

• Click here for another user's YouTube video of Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny performed on a Roland MT-32 via MIDI, one channel, one instrument
• Click here for my own YouTube video of Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny performed on a Roland MT-120 via MIDI, ten channels, with percussion!

Tom Owad wrote:

I didn't test ogg, but m4a and mp3 were working for me. It might be related to html tags getting stripped for security.

All this will change with the Drupal update, so let's not spend any more time on it right now, although I appreciate the detail.  I expect to migrate Applefritter to the new server next week, then hopefully update Drupal the week after that.

That's absolutely fine, and absolutely sensible.