THE MAC

First,  to run ALL four formats on the MAC,  you must install and use a Windows Emulator such as  Virtual PC .  (  I think there was another emulator called "SoftWindows" but it seems not to be in existance any more, or at least nothing comes up for it with a date later than 1998. )    All four formats and their readers were written on PC's and (as I understand it) the emulator puts an overlay on the MAC that allows one to use these PC programs.  However,  several correspondents have told me that the programs are large, expensive and not particularly fast.  YMMV. Any MAC users with an opinion or recommendations on this can CONTACT me and I'll add the pertinent details here.   Without an installed emulator,  you should be able to VIEW the ABC files as a .txt file (or whatever that is that MAC uses) and the Sheet Music (since it's a graphics file) should be able to be viewed as well.   Again,  I haven't had a MAC since my old SE30 (1992) so I don't know. DATAVIZ makes "Conversions Plus", Pangerny makes "OneClickConvert" and I'm sure that there are many other converter programs to render the ABC files from .txt to a MAC-usable format. Highly recommended by several MAC users is BARFLY. Mr. Phil Taylor of Scotland maintains several pages which contain various downloadable iterations of BARFLY, a share-ware program which will operate the ABC files on just about any MAC made since 1995 (I could be wrong on the date!)  There are versions available for any MAC running any  OS from 7.0 on up to 10.   Also,  his pages have a downloadable MAC soundfile for Concertina which, when installed and selected, will give your playback of the ABC files a Concertina sound!  His page is http://www.barfly.dial.pipex.com/ and he also has links listed for other pages with MAC programs you may find useful. I'm told that the MIDI's are common to all platforms, but, again, not having a MAC, I dunno.... (LATE ENTRY from Mike Riley, our guru of Mac-ie-ness) on 3/21/04 : "ABC files don’t require any conversion. I downloaded the ones off your page into Barfly. MIDI files work just fine (also no conversion). I just had to download a freeware or shareware midi player (like Mighty MIDI or others). These types of programs are available at versiontracker.com or cnet.com or other sources."   Thanks, MIKE! Another entry from Mike on 3/22/04: "Was gonna write a long note but this will have to suffice:  CD works fine on MAC." (I assume he means with Virtual PC installed.) You can really help out if you have any knowledge in this field! BACK TO O'CAROLAN'S TUNES BACK TO MAIN O'NEILL'S PAGE BACK TO INSTRUCTIONS PAGE