WHISTLE Release 1.9
Play a Tune on Your PC

What is WHISTLE?

WHISTLE plays a tune through your PC speaker directly; no drivers are used. Even in these days of ubiquitous SoundBlaster cards, there are still occasional requests on the newsgroups for something like this. I myself use it to play a short fanfare when a long batch operation has finished -- my disk backup, for instance.

WHISTLE features a rich music definition language that lets you transcribe virtually any printed melodic line (one note at a time) and play it through the PC speaker. The features include:

• key signatures
• full accidentals (sharp, flat, double sharp, double flat, natural)
• multiple metronome markings (tempi)
• styles (such as staccato) and phrasing
• synchronous display of lyrics while playing a tune

WHISTLE runs in DOS 3.x or higher, and in a DOS box under Windows 3.x, 9x, or ME. Though I haven’t tested it myself under Windows NT or 2000, a correspondent told me it worked fine in NT 4.0.

The program comes with documentation and several sample input files.

The full user guide (27 KB) can be viewed on line and is included in the download package.

How do I get WHISTLE?

You may download the program and docs as a 49 KB ZIP file from Simtel. (If a link leads to the wrong place, please let me know before complaining to the archive.) After downloading, unzip it in any convenient directory and read the 0README.1ST file.

This free download is intended for you to try the program. If you continue using it after your 30-day trial, you’ll want to pay for it.

Need an unzip program? Two excellent choices are UNZIP by Info-ZIP (freeware) for DOS and WinZip (shareware) for Windows.

How do I buy WHISTLE?

WHISTLE is shareware. Download it gratis and try it out for 30 days. Pay for it if you decide to keep using it; otherwise just delete it from your computer.

Price: US $12.00 for single license; quantity discounts and site licenses are available.

Payment methods: PayPal or register by postal mail.

Upgrades: Under the license terms, there is no additional charge for upgrades. When releasing an upgrade, we send a notice to every registered user at the e-mail in our records. Please make sure we have your current address!

What’s new?

WHISTLE is a mature product and is unlikely to be upgraded significantly. The last release, release 1.9 of 20 May 2000, made some modest improvements in prompts and the help message.