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Note that Sidplayer songs by some of these people are featured on the Songs page.
My work on the Sidplayer music system included contracting with the publisher, devising the .mus file format, writing the interrupt-driven music playing code, writing the text for the books, coding the Enhanced Sidplayer song editor in assembly language (implementing the user interface designed by Harry Bratt), and promoting the software at user groups and on online services.
I currently work as a UNIX systems programmer in the financial services industry.
Harry wrote the original Sidplayer song editor program, designed the user interface for the editor Enhanced Sidplayer editor, and produced the initial body of songs used to promote Sidplayer. He entered quality transcriptions of existing songs and composed clever and creative original songs.
Harry is involved in speech recognition research at SRI and lives in California with his wife Liz.
Bob generously helped in many ways with my Sidplayer work. I knew him before any of the other people associated with Sidplayer's history, having met him in 1980 at a user group meeting for Ohio Scientific computer owners.
Bob lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Jerry did a lot of testing work for the original Sidplayer music system and created some of the first demonstration songs. He was about 15 years old at the time and didn't have a computer, so I loaned him a Commodore 64 and disk drive.
Jerry now works as a computer professional. He and his wife live in Michigan.
Robert Higgins created many of the songs used to demonstrate instrument sounds and various features of the Sidplayer music system. These songs were included in the books and on the Sidplayer program disks.
At my last contact with Robert Higgins, he was living in New York.
Steve was a University of Michigan student living in East Quad, the same dorm as Harry Bratt. Steve used early versions of the original Sid Editor, written by Harry, to create "Peanuts," the very first Sidplayer song.
Steve apparently declines further contact. Thanks, Steve, for helping Sidplayer get off to a great start!
Ellen managed the MANiac section of the Delphi online service, which served as the first official repository for Sidplayer songs.
Ellen has a web page.
Bob started the Singalong craze for Sidplayer. He wrote the first program that played Sidplayer songs while displaying lines of text synchronized with the music and called it "Singalong." I immediately incorporated this feature into the official Sidplayer programs.
Bob and his wife Chris live in Indiana.
Many people did some excellent work with Sidplayer, and I especially valued original compositions by people like Harry Bratt and John Mackey, but when it came to pure musical fun, my favorite Sidplayer artist was Stan Halaby.
I met Stan when he was a student in the music program at a local college. Stan now lives in San Antonio, Texas and performs in the Head 'N Out' show band.
Kent was the force behind the SID Symphony stereo cartridge sold by Dr. Evil Laboratories, which provided an easy way to add a second SID chip to a Commodore 64 for stereo music.
Kent has a web site devoted to his interest in Corvair cars.
I still remember my excitement when I first heard Brian's Sidplayer rendition of "Humoresque" - part song, part Pac Man game. A big part of the thrill of creating something like Sidplayer is in hearing what great things people do with it.
Brian lives in Waukesha, Wisconsin with his wife Wendy and their four children.
If it was a Sidplayer version of a soundtrack song, and it used pulse width sweeping, chances are it was by Brian Szepatowski.
Brian lives in Troy, New York and is the sound and recording engineer for the Joey Thomas Big Band, his father's band.
John C. Mackey was the youngest and most prolific composer of original Sidplayer songs. He also created Sidplayer and stereo Sidplayer versions of many classical works, starting when he was eleven years old. His grandest accomplishment was the transcription of selections from Bach's Magnificat in D Major and Beethoven's Symphony Number Nine in D Minor, Fourth Movement (Ode to Joy) for six SID chips.
John went on to earn a Master of Music degree in Composition at The Juilliard School and now composes professionally. He lives in New York City but is moving to Los Angeles. Be sure to visit John's web site.
John Roache made top-quality Sidplayer transcriptions of ragtime songs.
John passed away on March 3, 1999. His ragtime music is still available in MIDI format at John Roache's Ragtime MIDI Library.
Jerry Roth, who also went by the name Dr J5 on Q-Link, created some of the most fun and popular Sidplayer songs. He certainly knew how to get a whole lot of music out of just three voices. And he entered all of the songs by ear!
Because Jerry was active on Q-Link and his songs were so popular, his may well have been the most widely heard Sidplayer songs.
Jerry Roth passed away on July 5, 1999. He is survived by his wife Suzanne and daughters Melissa and Erica.
Thank you very, very much, Jerry, for the joy you brought to me and to others.
revised July 23, 2005 10:31 EST