MICRORIP.TXT                                           tOOb 2005
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MicroRip is a small utility made to rip music data from a number
of MicroCabin games, with which it creates files to be used with
Micro Music, a fine little TSR made by Frits Hilderink who later
became known as the author of NLMSX.

With Micro Music you can listen to your favorite tunes from your
favorite game by your favorite software house. And since it is a
MEMMAN TSR, it'll even work on the background while you're doing
something else in DOS.

To use MicroRip, simply put it on a disk with DOS1 (important!!)
and type MICRORIP followed by the name of the script you wish to
run. At the time of this initial release, only a script for Xak1
has been finished. Be sure to use DOS1 since MicroRip is not yet
compatible with DOS2.

Example: MICRORIP XAK1DATA

This version of MicroRip does not check if you have inserted the
correct disk or not. This was mainly done, since this would pose
a problem considering the many different versions of MicroCabins
that are circulating in the MSX community. A number of the games
have been patched to various languages, or modified to work with
DOS2, meaning some of them have different bootsectors... Be sure
to pay attention, and insert the right disk at the right time...
If not you will have to start the whole process all over again!!
As an extra precaution, be sure to *write-protect* your original
disks, just in case you mess up an select one of your game disks
as the destination disk ;)

After starting MicroRip, simply follow the instructions that are
printed to the screen. At each step, you may press C to continue
or any other key to return to DOS. Every script will tell you up
front how much primary RAM your MSX will need, and how much free
space your destination disk will need... In practice, all of the
scripts will run with 256kB Main RAM. I could have probably done
this more elegantly, but this was supposed to be a quick'n'dirty
ripping utility, so no fancy stuff. If your MSX does not have at
least 256kB Main RAM, you may be unable to run some of the large
scripts, like those of the Xak series and Illusion City. You can
solve this by running the program in an emulator though.

To run MicroRip, create a disk(image) with a DOS1 bootsector and
the COMMAND.COM / MSXDOS.SYS system files. Copy MICRORIP.COM and
any script files you may have (*.RIP) to the same disk and reset
your MSX. Type MICRORIP followed by a space, and the name of the
script you wish to run, without the .RIP extension. Then, follow
the on-screen instructions, making sure you insert the *correct*
disk when asked, remember, this is not checked. If you created a
new disk with just the files mentioned above, all the files that
MicroRip will create (all the games) will fit neatly on the same
disk. If not, just check that the disk at least has the required
free space mentioned in the script. Try not to do anything funny
since MicroRip doesn't really have any error routines.

Well, that pretty much covers it... I think I've said everything
there was to say at least twice! :P

This "program" proudly uses BitBuster, the best compression util
out there. Thanks to Team Bomba for making it. I'm sure it saved
at least a whole kilobyte of space! :P

Thanks to BiFi for supplying the original MicroMusic data files,
used to determine the correct format.

Cheers!

t00b





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MICRORIP.COM   v0.01   28-05-2005   The actual ripping thingy...
MICRORIP.TXT   v0.01   28-05-2005   This lame-ass piece of text!
XAK1DATA.RIP   v0.01   28-05-2005   The script for Xak
XAK2DATA.RIP   v0.01   29-05-2005   The script for Xak II
XAK3DATA.RIP   v0.01   29-05-2005   The script for Xak Gazzel
BS-2DATA.RIP   v0.01   29-05-2005   The script for Daisenryaku 2
ILLCDATA.RIP   v0.01   29-05-2005   The script for Illusion City
PRMKDATA.RIP   v0.01   29-05-2005   The script for PrincessMaker
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(PS. ro is a lazy bum!)