hi!
if you spend enough time in a place, you will begin to know the patterns of that place - the sun and moon, traffic, tides, smells, faces, sounds. once you know the patterns, you can begin to use them to tell the time - if the trash truck just woke me up, it must be friday morning. if the sun is high in the middle of the sky and i'm still in bed, it's probably noon. (i like to sleep!)
SineClock puts a pattern - the interaction of three sets of sine waves - on your desktop and into your ears. if you spend enough time with it, that pattern and the information it contains (the time of day) become clear. it's also just nice to listen to!
using SineClock:
SineClock will remember its screen position and volume setting between launches.
SineClock is a replicant, which means that you can drag it into container applications (like the desktop/tracker) and it will embed itself in them. here's what you do: go to the deskbar, pull down the BeOS menu and select "Show Replicants." now there will be a little hand in the corner of the SineClock window. drag this hand to the desktop. you're done! SineClock is now a part of your desktop. it will stay there until you remove it, even if you shut down your computer. so if you like to keep SineClock on most of the time, the easiest thing to do is just drag it to the desktop. to remove a replicant you have to again "Show Replicants," then control-click (or middle-click(?) for multi-button mice) on the little hand. select "Delete" and it will dissapear. how sad.
technical info on SineClock:
when two sound waves are tuned very close to each other (let's say within 20Hz), you don't hear two distinct tones - instead you hear a "beating" effect, at a rate determined by the difference in frequency between the two waves. so for the first set of waves, at 0 seconds there will be no beating (200Hz-200Hz = 0Hz), while at 30 seconds there will be beating at 5Hz (205Hz-200Hz = 5Hz). by listening for the beats in each set of waves you can get an idea of where they are in their cycles - and what time it is.
email: glmrboy@shoko.calarts.edu
email: douglas.repetto@dartmouth.edu
web: http://shoko.calarts.edu/~glmrboy
other BeOS software i've written is here.
current land (good at least through 2000):
6187 hopkins center
dartmouth college
electro-acoustic music
hanover, n.h.
03755 USA
permanent land:
2046 bellemead ave
havertown, pa
19083-2221 USA
version history:
2.0 (25.october.97) - REPLICANT! it was a pain in the hootie, but worth it. i learned a lot. i also made the waveform window better and smaller. oh, and the really important thing is the cool new about box.
1.1.1 (11.october.97) - added real value to SineClock by colorizing the README file. the magenta text is especially satisfying.
august.97 - SineClock wins a "most interesting" honorable mention in the august be masters awards. thanks!
1.1 (27.july.97) - set file type and signature correctly. that's it!
1.0 (23.july.97) - first public release