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**         MergeAIFF 1.0 Copyright © by Erik Spåre 1998             **
**                       (Parsec/Phuture 303)                       **
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INTRODUCTION

    This simple program will let you join 2 or more (maximum 20) AIFF
    (Audio IFF) files into one single file.


BACKGROUND

    A friend recently lent me his CD-ROM and I started to sample my
    favourite cd's, to have them mp3-packed. But I encountered
    problems... When I started to transfer the songs (using OptyCDPlayer)
    the operation would be aborted for no apparent reason, after 1-10
    seconds. I found that this did not happen when I saved to the ramdisk.
    But the tune I was trying to save was 170MB, and I only have 32MB of
    RAM.

    I couldn't seem to find a program on Aminet that joined AIFF files,
    only one called Join8SVX. I was forced to write my own...


USAGE

    MergeAIFF <sourcefiles separated by spaces> AS <output file>

    For example, if you save a tune in 2 parts, with the beginning in
    orb1.aiff and the end in orb2.aiff, you could write:

    MergeAIFF dh0:orb1.aiff ram:orb2.aiff AS dh0:orb.aiff


REQUIREMENTS

    I'm not sure what version/s of the OS IFFParse library requires.
    250kb will be allocated for a transfer buffer, but if that fails
    half of that sum will be allocated. If that also fails, half of that
    sum etc. The smallest allowed buffer is 32kb.


LIMITATIONS

    The only chunks that are recognized and copied are COMM (which
    contains info about the sound) and SSND (containing the sound
    itself). Any other chunk will be disregarded (I'm not sure there
    are any, I just wrote this program to suit _my_ needs).

    The two fields "offset" and "blocksize" in the SSND chunk must be
    zero. Reading IFF specs are very boring, so I skipped these two
    when 1: I noticed that Opty did not us them, and 2: I read that they
    are rarely used. If one of your sourcefiles would happen to use
    these fields, this program will refuse to merge them.


FEATURES

    * To make up for above mentioned limitations you'll find the sourcecode
      (in C) included. If you make any improvements then please contact me
      so that we can use them in the next release.

    * It is free.

    * If your computer tend to crash when you're saving a large song to
      your hd, you can save via the RAM-disk and then use this program.
      Healthier for the drive...

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                10158   19620  51.8% -lh5- 47f0 Jan  9  1998 MergeAIFF/MergeAIFF
[generic]                 4270   13874  30.8% -lh5- 4e6d Jan  9  1998 MergeAIFF/MergeAIFF.cpp
[generic]                 1530    3014  50.8% -lh5- 5617 Jan  9  1998 MergeAIFF/MergeAIFF10.doc
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         3 files   15958   36508  43.7%            Jan  8  1998