SCORE 3.1 [Looking to Buy]

[benwiggy]

I stand corrected. "SCORE: Makes Finale look effortless."

There's a reason that programmers don't write in Assembler anymore, but use higher-level code that can construct abstract concepts. Computers should be here to save us from tedious repetitive tasks, not to give us more of them!

I dare say there's something in the code of SCORE that could be useful, if re-purposed into a modern app --from the sound of WinScore, it's just a Windows XP party frock, and is in just as much danger of becoming obsolete.

Interestingly, while researching, I came upon this post in an Adobe forum from Sept 2020:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/type-typ ... -p/9765342

Hello, I work in music publishing, and work collaboratively with two colleagues in an effort to create a music typesetting program that would enable "legacy files" of a defunct, 16bit MS-DOS music typesetting program to be read and editable. This particular MS-DOS app, given the technology at the time, made provisions only for postscript type 1 fonts. Specifically, it allowed reference to all type 1 fonts contained in the Adobe Type Basics set.
By now, the type 1 fonts in this Adobe set are deprecated. In our current software development, we are drawing to screen via postscript, but to display these legacy fonts, we have to rely on emulated fonts, which is less than ideal, and a serious obstacle to processing legacy files properly.

So someone ("Juergen0D44") is working on dragging Score into the 21st century, it seems.

[Fred G. Unn]

That's an interesting find on the Adobe forums! The last post there sounds like Adobe has no interest in playing along though:

"On behalf of Adobe, the definitive answer is absolutely no!

The original license terms still apply. You may not redistribute those fonts. You can embed the fonts in PDF and EPS files for display and print by others, but that is it!"

I'd be curious if Juergen0D44 had any luck with the project. It doesn't look like they have posted since that one thread.

I think a lot of the SCORE reliance on crazy file structures, only specific supported Type 1 fonts, etc., was to get around the 640k DOS memory limit. It's sort of amazing that we can now (theoretically at least) have an entire opera in a single Dorico file, whereas SCORE typically used a separate file for each system.

[Fred G. Unn]

Found a good quote from Tom Brodhead referencing some of the memory issues:

"Leland Smith’s genius was that he had considered all aspects of notation and broken them into categories, and then considered every possible way that a music glyph might need to be altered. As such, his program allows a user to manipulate each aspect of a musical object independently of all its other aspects, and without interference from a “global editor” that attempts to correct “improper” notation. In part this may have been a product of the memory limitations of DOS at the time that he prepared SCORE for its initial release (1986), but if so, it resulted in a program with such fine control over music graphics that still no other program can rival it, and some projects are still only possible in SCORE."

SCORE was incredibly flexible with a bunch of "P" value parameters that could be modified with virtually every element, but not much was automated. Things like horizontal spacing and vertical justification were handled with separate subroutine programs. With SCORE all the notation decisions, casting off, layout, etc. usually came as part of the input process IIRC. It didn't feel strange to me at the time, probably because I was originally trained as a hand copyist who also had to make the same decisions, but it sure seems odd now. Most of the time I input in Galley view and don't even bother thinking about any of that stuff until later.

[Fred G. Unn]

So someone ("Juergen0D44") is working on dragging Score into the 21st century, it seems.

Juergen must be Juergen Selk, who runs the ScorBox site:
https://www.scorbox.com/dosbox/

It looks like he has a great set of videos there too:
https://www.scorbox.com/videos/

[benwiggy]

It's sort of amazing that we can now (theoretically at least) have an entire opera in a single Dorico file,

Nothing theoretical about it. I've done six complete opera scores in Dorico; the first of which started life as 90 or so Finale files, which had sat on my computer for nearly 10 years, while I dreaded/thought about the process of how to create one 'score' from them all.

[David Ward]

It's sort of amazing that we can now (theoretically at least) have an entire opera in a single Dorico file,

Nothing theoretical about it. I've done six complete opera scores in Dorico; the first of which started life as 90 or so Finale files, which had sat on my computer for nearly 10 years, while I dreaded/thought about the process of how to create one 'score' from them all.

In 2012 I did a complete 90 minute opera in Finale with no problem (which may possibly have had as many entries of one kind or an other as a baroque opera twice as long). However, I returned to using a separate file for each of 12 scenes for a somewhat longer one in 2015/16. I don't remember why, but there must have been something…

[benwiggy]

It was the prospect of all the staff hiding, the titling of each scene, and manual positioning that scared me.

Back on track, am I right in thinking that really, SCORE just provided a framework for turning instructions into notation, and it was those instructions where the 'meat' of the work was done? So it wasn't so much "here are some notes, please lay them out", as "I want this note positioned at X, followed by this note at X+26".

I think the most useful endeavour would be to convert all Score files to PDF, and then move on. It's going to be harder and harder to emulate the 40-year-old computer environment that SCORE needs, with each year that passes.

[Fred G. Unn]

Nothing theoretical about it. I've done six complete opera scores in Dorico; the first of which started life as 90 or so Finale files, which had sat on my computer for nearly 10 years, while I dreaded/thought about the process of how to create one 'score' from them all.

I guess I would be afraid that I'd get an hour or so into the music and everything would grind to a halt, especially with Condensing on. Happy to hear they all worked out for you!

Back on track, am I right in thinking that really, SCORE just provided a framework for turning instructions into notation, and it was those instructions where the 'meat' of the work was done? So it wasn't so much "here are some notes, please lay them out", as "I want this note positioned at X, followed by this note at X+26".

Sort of. The example you cited was controlled by the LJ (lineup and justify) command so it did automate that aspect of it, although you certainly could modify anything. There were codes for each type of item, and then each code had maybe 18 or so adjustable parameters (P value). For example code 1 is notes and then P5 was stem direction. Code 2 is rests and P5 for it is type of rest, etc. By modifying the P value you had a lot of control over every single parameter of every element.

You input everything in passes. In order it was Pitches, Rhythm, Marks, Beams, Slurs. The Pitch stage also included Rests, Clefs, Time Sigs, and Barlines. When first input, none of the notes are beamed so you had to specify the beaming at the Beam stage. This could be automated by typing 4B to beam 4 eighths together. Most automated processes IIRC were not done by the SCORE program itself, but specialized subroutine programs. LJ was horizontal spacing, VJ vertical justification, BEAM fixed the beam angles, etc. You could speed things up a lot using macros. I really only did input and then handed the file off so I definitely wasn't well versed in page layout, file "rippling", or other more sophisticated aspects of the program.

[George M19]

Thanks for the help and conversation, all. Very insightful.

[JoshNichols]

I used to have the DOS version (last version I had was likely 3.0, 3.1?), but have no idea what happened to the disks. It does appear like you can still purchase the Windows version of WINSCORE 5.01, which I don't think really ever caught on with SCORE users:
http://www.maresova.net/winscore/purchase.html

You could also contact San Andreas Press and see if they have a mechanism to sell you 3.1 too.

San Andreas Press has been defunct since at least 2014.