Compute's Gazette Sid Collection
Version 1.45
Released in March 2023

COMPUTE!'s Sidplayer was a music system created by Craig Chamberlain and Harry Bratt for the Commodore 64 home computer. Sidplayer was the most popular Commodore 64 music system in the U.S., as measured by the number of songs available for download on services such as Compuserve and Q-Link (the forerunner to America Online).

The aim of the Compute's Gazette Sid Collection is to try and preserve as many of those Sidplayer music files in one location as possible.
The current collection contains 16403 MUS files, 4356 STR files and 5556 WDS files.

NOTE: MUS files contain music, STR files contain voices 4-6 for stereo music and WDS files contain the words to the tune.

Main Collection
Note: You will need 7-zip to decompress the .7z files.

Picture Add-on Collection

C64 Edition
Also available is a version of the files pre-prepared for use of a real c64 by Terry Raymond (the filenames have been shortened). There is a choice of all the files in separate d81 images per author or in separate zip files per author. (Note: This is based on an older version of the collection)

If you have any additons for the collection then email p w e i g h i l l @ h o t m a i l . c o m

If you want to listen to individual tunes online then try DeepSid by Chordian
or go to http://www.hvsc.de/players.htm for a list of players for various computers.



Playing Stereo Music in VICE

Settings to make Mark Dickenson's Stereo Player work in stereo mode
(both the .MUS and .STR files playing simultaneously with the graphics in sync)

Run VICE to get the Commodore 64 blue screen.
Under Settings Menu: Sound settings, DirectX driver, Sample Frequency 44100 Hz, Sound Buffer Size 100msec (350msec out of sync), Oversampling Factor 2x, Synchronization Method Exact
Under Settings Menu: SID Settings: SID Model 8580 (new), Stereo SID at $DE00
Under Settings Menu: Drive Settings 1581 (or 1541)
Under Options Menu: Video Standard, NTSC-M
Under Options Menu: Virtual Device traps checked. (Leave True Drive Emulation unchecked it is way too slow when checked.)
Under File Menu: Attach Disk Image, Drive 8, type .d81 (or .d64) virtual disk file (with Stereo Player Ver. 10.3 and .MUS and .STR files on it). Attach it.
Under File Menu: Attach Disk Image, Drive 9, type .d81 (or .d64) virtual disk file (with more .MUS and .STR files on it). Attach it.
Load and run the Stereoplayer Boot Program and press "N" and away you go. (I have to do a run, enter after it loads, as the comma 8 comma 1 doesn't make the automatic run work and the JiffyDOS British Pound symbol and command aren't emulated.)
Thanks to John Kaputa for supplying the above information.
Playing on a real c64 with UIEC2SD

Booting STEREOPLAYERV10.3 possibly lower versions on the UIEC2SD Jim Brain version.
Make sure your UIEC2SD units device number is set to device#8 or 9
With Stereo player files delete STEREO.CONFIG file (current player configuration).
Boot STEREOPLAYERV10.3 (or others)
NOTE: DONT try to load a Sid file yet!
BE PATIENT let the Song files poll into directory
this shows up in the Left Hand window that displays the songs.
Press the C=(Commodore logo key on keyboard)
About halfway down is F
press the F key this shuts Fast Load OFF
Jim's UIEC2SD does not support fasload (not compatible) if you don't shut this off the player locks up.
Now on C64 keyboard press left arrow key to save this configuration.
Now the Stereo player can load any Sid files, CMD Jiffy Dos or Jim's Jiffy Dos loads faster.