sidpicker

Terminal interface for browsing/searching HVSC and playing SID tunes.

Requirements

• High Voltage SID Collection #67 or later (download here)
• sidplayfp (download here)
• C-64 ROM dumps (basic, kernal and chargen) (download here)

Setup

HVSC

The HVSC_BASE environment variable must be set to point to the base directory of your extracted HVSC installation.

Examples:

Linux or MacOS:

export HVSC_BASE=~/Download/C64Music

Windows:

setx HVSC_BASE C:\Download\C64Music

sidplayfp

The sidplayfp configuration file needs to be edited to point to the C-64 ROM dumps, since many SID tunes contain code that rely on these to run properly.

On Linux or MacOS, edit the file ~/.config/sidplayfp/sidplayfp.ini:

Kernal Rom = /usr/local/lib64/vice/C64/kernal
Basic Rom = /usr/local/lib64/vice/C64/basic
Chargen Rom = /usr/local/lib64/vice/C64/chargen

On Windows, edit the file %appdata%\sidplayfp\sidplayfp.ini:

Kernal Rom = C:\C64\vice\C64\kernal
Basic Rom = C:\C64\vice\C64\basic
Chargen Rom = C:\C64\vice\C64\chargen

You obviously need to adjust the file paths to where VICE has installed the ROM dumps on your system.

Usage

Simply run sidpicker in your terminal to start. At startup it will read the tune index and present you with a list of all tunes in the HVSC.

The first time you run, it will detect the installed HVSC version and download a precompiled index including links to CSDb releases where each tune has been used.

If you're offline, or have installed a brand new version of HVSC for which a precompiled index is not yet available, you can run the following command to build the index locally:

sidpicker -i

Note that when you build locally, the index will not include information about CSDb releases.

Keyboard input

• arrow down - move down one position in the list
• arrow up - move up one position in the list
• page down - scroll the list one page down
• page up - scroll the list one page up
• enter - play the currently selected entry in the list
• space - play the next entry in the list
• escape - if a tune is playing, stop playing. otherwise, exit sidpicker
• / - Edit search query (use cursor keys and backspace, enter when done)
• 1-9 - Play specific subtune
• arrow right - Play next subtune
• arrow left - Play previous subtune

Search query

There are two types of search queries: simple and advanced. In both cases, all string matching is case insensitive.

Simple search

The simple type is just a substring search through tune's text fields.

Type /, enter a phrase then type Enter. The list will now be filtered to include tunes where the phrase you entered is included in either the title, author, released or STIL info fields.

Advanced search

The advanced type uses a prefix notation to allow filtering on specific fields and related data:

• a:string - Author field must include the given string
• n:string - Title field must include the given string (t:string also works)
• c:string - Released field must include the given string
• p:string - The path within HVSC must include the given string
• s:string - STIL information must include the given string
• u:string - CSDb "releases used" must include the given string
• y:range - Release year of the tune must be contained in or overlap the given year range

Year ranges can be a single year, an open interval or a closed interval. Years can be entered with 4 or 2 digits. When 2 digits is used, 70 or above is interpreted as 19xx while a number below 70 is interpreted as 20xx.

Some examples:

• 1991 - Include tunes released in 1991
• 89 - Include tunes released in 1989
• -1992 - Include tunes released in 1992 or earlier
• 08- - Include tunes released in 2008 or later
• 95-04 - Include tunes released between 1995 and 2004

To filter on multiple terms, separate them by a comma:

• p:prosonix,y:2010- - Include tunes with prosonix in the path released in 2010 or later
• n:intro,u:genesis project - Include tunes with intro in the title, used in a Genesis Project release