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Posted By: Keith from Oz Who Remembers These? - 08/13/12 05:42 AM
I was recently cleaning our my Band in 3 Boxes (too many disks for one box) and I came accross a few of these supplementary disks.
Perhaps a bit of nostalgia from, I think, 2000 or 2001.




My, how times have changed.
Posted By: Danny C. Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/13/12 05:56 PM
Not me my senior friend, but I do have version 9 somewhere.

Now if I had discovered this forum a year or so earlier I would indeed have an older version. I guees that means I may be the senior in this discussion.

Later,
Posted By: Mac Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/13/12 06:00 PM
Somewhee around here I've got Band in a Box complete installation files from old versions when the entire thing fit onto two floppies...


--Mac
Posted By: Larry Kehl Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 12:40 AM
What Mac said!

I also remember getting a 3.5" floppy UPDATE/patch at least once (I think a few times in the early DOS days) in the mail at PG's expense without asking, calling, or knowing there was one available!

I knew from then on it was going to be a great customer experience with PG.

Larry
Posted By: MarioD Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 12:49 AM
I’m not that old but I remember seeing something like that on a rerun

My TV at the time was an Atari

How come my nose is longer
Posted By: Danny C. Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 03:04 AM
Quote:

Somewhee around here I've got Band in a Box complete installation files from old versions when the entire thing fit onto two floppies...


--Mac




Mac,

Is there any truth to the rumor that you actually used the "Abacus" version of BIAB?

Yes I can duck very well sir, thank you!

Later,
Posted By: Ryszard Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 05:10 AM
I've still got BIAB version 7 on a couple of floppies. It was bundled with PTPA version 1 on a single floppy! But extra Styles? I don't even remember how I got hold of BIAB in the first place. I was still in my computer music infancy. I don't think I even had a GM soundcard at that point. (Even I fell victim to the fallacy of "BIAB's cheesy sound.")

I did have a copy of Passport Master Tracks Pro, a great MIDI sequencer, into which I learned to copy and paste MIDI tracks from BIAB for editing, which was the seed of what I do now with BIAB and Reason. Bob Norton still raves about MTP. Somewhere I still have some 50 to 80 Mb drives around with some pretty good MIDI files from that time. I wasn't bright enough to back everything up to floppies.
Posted By: floyd jane Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 09:19 AM
I'll admit... I remember. I mentioned in a recent post that I started on Version 5 and got my Version 6 upgrade on 5 1/4 inch floppies (still got 'em). Stopped there - until I bought 2012.5 a couple of weeks ago...

My only other music program was - Master Tracks Pro...
Posted By: cressjl Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 12:25 PM
Quote:

Mac,

Is there any truth to the rumor that you actually used the "Abacus" version of BIAB?

Yes I can duck very well sir, thank you!

Later,



No abacus version, but I believe a slide rule had to factor into the initial software development cycle somewhere...
Posted By: Keith from Oz Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 12:37 PM
If any person is brave enough to mention the words "Stone Tablets" they'd better be able to run, duck & weave. Mac's an old hand with firearms.
Posted By: cressjl Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 02:28 PM
Quote:

If any person is brave enough to mention the words "Stone Tablets" they'd better be able to run, duck & weave. Mac's an old hand with firearms.


Are you suggesting that Mac is as old as Moses?

I remember well the days that Band-In-A-Box was one of the very few music applications running on an IBM PC. It seemed that Macintosh, with MOTU, and so forth was the only way to go to record music. I actually had to write my own low-level software interface (not quite qualified to be called "drivers" yet) for the IBM PCM audio card. What a pain! Microsoft Windows 3.0 was a godsend; and who could beat that awesome "Hot Dog Stand" color scheme?
Posted By: filkertom Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 02:45 PM
Band In Box not made for TI-99/4A, so Ugg not have early version. Ugg code notes in TI Basic, though.

Ugg not like.

Abacus and slide rule much better for Ugg's music career.
Posted By: John Conley Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 03:02 PM


mac lived 900 years
mac lived 900 years
who calls that livin' when no gal will give in
to no man who's 900 years

It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible,
It ain't necessarily so.
Posted By: LoveGuitar Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 04:36 PM
I was gettin old when I bought my first BIAB this past March! What does that mean for me? I guess BIAB 2025.5 will be on my bucket list.
Posted By: LoveGuitar Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 04:37 PM
OH, and maybe I will have a forum title by then instead of my "________"
Posted By: Notes Norton Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/14/12 09:34 PM
Somewhere I have BiaB disks for the Atari/ST, Mac with a Motorola CPU and PC DOS.

When I started selling my aftermarket styles in 1992, I offered my styles either on 3.5" or 5.25" floppy diskettes!

It was all mail-order back then, as the Internet wasn't even a dream for most people, and the first Windows version of BiaB hadn't come out yet.

The program has grown up with the computer industry, and has gone from its humble beginnings to a very powerful piece of software.

I've seen a couple of competitors to BiaB come and go, or hang on by a thread with a small portion of the software auto-accompaniment market. PG has stayed ahead of the pack by being innovative.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫
Brand new 2012.5 updates from Norton Music:
  • 2 new style disks for Band-in-a-Box
  • 2 new free (with a purchase) fancy intro/ending disks for Real Band and other DAW's
  • The Ultimate Gospel Fake Disk
  • The Real Rock Fake Disk (plenty of classic rock in this one)
  • The Beatles Fake Disk
  • And an updated Christmas Fake Disk

Hundreds of Free .sgu and .mp3 demos for the above at: http://www.nortonmusic.com
Posted By: LynB Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/15/12 09:17 AM
I still have version BIAB version 6 on CD plus manual and styles on rigid 1.25 mbyte floppies. As these drives were omitted from PCs some time ago, I converted the styles to a CD Disk just in case. I have never had to use them.
Posted By: PhillyJazz Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/15/12 12:55 PM
I still have a DOS version running on a Compaq III portable (amber screen and all) with a Turtle Beach card, and Stacker to compress the 5MB disk to look like 10 !!
Posted By: Larry Kehl Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/16/12 12:09 AM
Stacker!

Now there is a program I haven't thought about or used in a LONG time. I use to swear by it, along with Multi-Edit (which I STILL swear by) and a few other moldy oldies

Larry
Posted By: jford Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/16/12 02:07 AM
I used to use Stacker (to double the size of my Seagate RLL hard drive on my Kaypro PC).

I didn't use Multi-Edit, but I did use a nice TSR editor called QEdit, which eventually became "The Semware Editor", which I still use to this day, even though it hasn't been updated in probably 10 years or so.

I didn't start using BIAB until version 8, where I bought the basic Pro package. As soon as version 9 came out, I went for the MegaPak (which was the most you could get back then, other than the EverythingPak) and have upgraded to every version and half version ever since. Nothing compares to these PGMusic programs. Nothing!

I have installed all of the versions (for nostalgia more than anything), but some of the installers won't work with 64-bit Windows, so I have to do them in an XP virtual machine. Windows 7 XP-mode works fine for that.
Posted By: Matt Finley Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/16/12 02:47 AM
My first computer, long before the IBM PC was even invented, used a portable cassette tape recorder for storage.

Anybody have BIAB on cassettes? (kidding)
Posted By: Larry Kehl Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/16/12 05:05 AM
That wouldn't happen to be the Radio Shack Color Computer (aka CoCo) would it? I still have soft spot for the CoCo - it got me through grad school (a CoCo and a TI-59 with more than a few of the library modules) . (I was a late bloomer I didn't attend college for a long time after high school)


But then in late 70's early 80's more than a few "PC's" used cassette as "mass storage" - what was the blinding baud rate again?

Larry
Posted By: Matt Finley Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/16/12 05:42 AM
I still have a Color Computer in the closet, but no, that came out in summer 1980 and ran LOGO, among other things. I started in 1977 with the TRS-80 Model 1 and then a Model 3. Before 1982 I worked for Tandy and was selling these computers to IBMers among others and demonstrating them on TV, and I managed the first retail computer store in the Albany region. I then became their regional educator before teaching computer science in college for the next twenty-five years.

The data transfer rate of my first modem, which had suction cups to fit over a telephone receiver, was 300 baud. It was a happy day when the 1200 baud unit came out.
Posted By: David Walker Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/17/12 02:00 AM
I got my first taste of BB back in 1982 when a friend of mine from a musical show we were both in gave me a boot-leg copy of BB/DOS version on 5 1/4" floppy. I liked the program so much that I've since bought every version on a yearly basis since then and am waiting for Christmas to get 2013 BB. By the way, I still have every version except the 5 1/4" floppy version.
Great Product, Great Company. Thanks Peter for 30 years of joy.
Posted By: megafiddle Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/17/12 03:31 AM
My first computer was something called an "Elf". Had a full 256 bytes of ram. Not even enough to store this post. Disks were 8" floppies at that time and drives were were so expensive, you only saw them them at your place of employment.

My first "midi" computer was a Commodore64 with a home built midi interface and Dr T's sequencer. There was also a very crude music creating program around at that time that produced some type of rythm loop, if I remember right. Later moved up to an Atari ST, also with Dr. T's sequencer. The sequencer would crash any time you entered an invalid quantity.

Never knew BIAB went back that far. Glad to see they made it.
Posted By: Notes Norton Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/17/12 08:19 PM
My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI99/4A and it had a cassette storage device. "Brrr-brrr-brrr-brrr-brrr-brrr-brrr".

My first edition of BiaB was the first version they put out on Atari. Second version was a PC pre-windows DOS version and I also had one for a Mac with a Motorola chip soon after I went into business.

I do remember working BiaB on a PC with 5.25" floppy disks but BiaB itself came on a 3.5 disk.

And before the TI I had a slide rule, and actually knew how to use it (but I don't remember now).

Notes
Posted By: Matt Finley Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/17/12 08:38 PM
Hey Bob, I remember your ads in an audio recording magazine from sometime in the 90s. When did you first start marketing BIAB add-on styles?
Posted By: Larry Kehl Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/18/12 03:15 AM
Ahh..slide rules - got me through high school, AF tech school, and part of college, I suspect quite a few on THIS forum used them as well and in the same "venues!"

I also collect them and have a fairly large collection, a few can be seen http://sliderulemuseum.com/ (look under Dietzgen).

I had more in Mike's gallery but he replaces virtual collection (ones not physically at the museum) with ones the museum actually owns (some bought, some donated which is where my collection will go some day). There are some manuals that I passed along as well (they didn't have and or the correct version wasn't on the web anywhere).

I still carry a pocket SR in my bag. Sometimes it's a Nestler 0130 MultiMath Duplex but most of the time it's a Pickett N-600ES, becasue that particular model went to the moon on Apollo missions (SR's, paper and pencil got us to the moon; not 64 digits of "precision"
Posted By: Mac Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/18/12 02:05 PM
Larry, you are a man to mine own heart *grin*.

Along with the Slide Rule, I also sometimes load the Sextant into my kit when doing TechRep work on GSAT systems.

You should see the faces of the younger set when I pull that thing out of the case and step out onto the flybridge...

"What's he DOING?"

"I think he's DIVINING our postion. From the STARS..."

"Can that be done?"

Does anyone remember the scene in the movie "Apollo 13" where the engineer confronted with in-flight emergency is shown with a TI Calculator?

Hard to find that scene anymore as so many of us contacted the Producer, etc. to tell them that there weren't any TI calculators at the time of Apollo 13. So they actually redid the movie and inserted a clip of the guy using his slipstick...

Then, of course, there's this digital code, the only one that can be translated using nothing more than the human brain. "Morse Code" -- Yet another skillset which should not have been allowed to languish.


--Mac
Posted By: CountryTrash Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/18/12 03:07 PM
I taught myself Basic programming on a ZX81 monitor was the TV, all of 16k RAM, programs was saved to cassettes. Upgraded when the ZX Spectrum came out 48k RAM....

I remember the tricks we tried to keep the programs lean to fit it all in!

I tell the youngsters at work how a pal of mine and myself wrote a complete PC Board productiion control system in the 80's on a Sharp MZ80B using dBase II (yes not dBaseIII). This also had 2 cassettes, one for the system, one for data....could'nt pick it up myself, so heavy ..
Posted By: Mac Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/18/12 04:09 PM
The ALTAIR was my first personal computer.

Mid 70's -- and you ahd to be able to follow schematics, directions, solder and pretty much built it from scratch.

The Output was a row of LEDs and many of us home experimenters dedicated a LOT of time and resources towards getting the Altair to display ASCII on a screen. When I finally achieved that using a standard old television set, man, it was time to dance around the ham shack.

http://oldcomputers.net/altair.html

My first Music Machine was an Atari, running the incredibly powerful, even by today's standards, "Bars 'n Pipes" MIDI sequencer software.

(Still keep a running Atari around here because sometimes the MIDI editing capabilities of Bars 'n Pipes can streamline delivery in certain projects. The ability to roll your own scripts to do any sort of batch work is still incredibly powerful despite all the sequencing softwares now available.)


--Mac
Posted By: Robert Coy Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/18/12 04:28 PM
My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair with 2K of memory. Added an external keyboard and 16K memory and thought I was really "Cookin'" Graduated to a Kaypro -- remember those?
Posted By: Notes Norton Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/18/12 04:37 PM
Quote:

Hey Bob, I remember your ads in an audio recording magazine from sometime in the 90s. When did you first start marketing BIAB add-on styles?




When PG Music offered version 4 for Atari, it was the first version to allow end users to make user styles. I believe that was in 1991 or 1992. It only had 3 instruments. Drums, bass and piano.

The basic 24 'built in' styles were very limiting, and especially the Latin American styles wouldn't do down here in South Florida, so I wrote a number of styles for myself. Better Latin styles, more rock styles a couple of country styles and so on.

I gave my styles away to a few of my friends, and they all told me they liked my styles better than the PG Music styles (aren't friends great!). So I took out an ad in Electronic Musician magazine, I think this was in 1992, but I could be off a year.

A few months later, Peter Gannon called, and encouraged me to write for IBM compatible computers (that's what we called PCs back then) and offered to convert my Atari styles to IBM styles (Atari and IBM shared the same floppy disk format). So I sent him the disks.

Then when I sold enough style disks to buy an IBM compatible computer, I got a 386 / DOS 5.0 / Win 3.1 IBM compatible with a 5.25 floppy and a 3.5 floppy (BiaB was DOS only then, the first Windows version hadn't arrived yet). Then came the Mac Classic II running system 6. I've upgraded all but the Atari quite a few times. Though I do remember getting a 10M hard drive for the Atari that was about the size of the Manhattan telephone directory.

So I'm guessing 1992. I never thought I'd still be doing it 20 years later but I am thankful for PG Music for the product and all my loyal customers for the support.

I wonder if Peter Gannon had any idea as to what would become of that great but clunky little infant program that was developed back in the early days of the PC?

Notes

Brand new 2012.5 updates from Norton Music:
  • 2 new style disks for Band-in-a-Box
  • 2 new free (with a purchase) fancy intro/ending disks for Real Band and other DAW's
  • The Ultimate Gospel Fake Disk
  • The Real Rock Fake Disk (plenty of classic rock in this one)
  • The Beatles Fake Disk
  • And an updated Christmas Fake Disk

Hundreds of Free .sgu and .mp3 demos for the above at: http://www.nortonmusic.com
Posted By: seeker Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/18/12 05:30 PM
What was the original publishing/sales date of BIAB?

Thanks
Posted By: Larry Kehl Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/19/12 01:31 AM
Quote:

What was the original publishing/sales date of BIAB?

Thanks




Peter,

I'd also like to know - Come on go dig out your records (both kinds I suspect like me you still have/play vinyl?) and report when the first BIAB for "PC" sold (intel x86 platforms because I think PG
Posted By: Notes Norton Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/19/12 08:03 PM
I remember seeing little ads in EM and Keyboard on the PC when all I had was an Atari (if my memory is correct but then, that was a loooooong time ago). I tend to think it started as a DOS program (again, I could be wrong about that). I've been using it since it first came out on the Atari. I might even have the floppy disk somewhere

I don't know the edition of DOS I started with, but when BiaB finally came out in Windows, they re-numbered it to Version 1 again.

So I would guess either late 80s or early 90s would be the origin of this great app.

Notes
Posted By: Kevin Woolley Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/20/12 06:15 AM
I've still got a copy of version 1 for DOS. I have it installed on an old HP Vectra 486 DX/25. It works with my MPU401 plugged into the computer but otherwise will not run if it doesn't find an interface it 'likes'.


Kevin
Posted By: Keith from Oz Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/22/12 03:56 AM
Quote:

What was the original publishing/sales date of BIAB?

Thanks




According to information from another area of this webiste, http://www.pgmusic.com/about.htm Peter formed PG Music in 1988.However I suspect that BIAB in an earlier form was around prior to that, judging by some of the above comments.
Posted By: seeker Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/22/12 04:49 AM
Bit more info nailing down your date Keith for the Dos version...
http://www.alisdair.com/gearsoftware/biabdiscussiongroup.html

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-st-band-in-a-box_21902.html

Click bottom pictures.
Posted By: Kevin Woolley Re: Who Remembers These? - 08/22/12 06:58 AM
The package shown must be later than version 1 for DOS as it has drums, bass and piano. The version I have on the HP only has drums and bass.
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