ORCΛ

Each letter of the alphabet is an operation, lowercase letters typically operate on bang(*), uppercase letters operate on each frame. Bangs can be generated by various operations, such as E colliding with a 0, see the bang.orca example. Watch a music video of ORCΛ in action.

C Port for the ORCΛ programming environment, with a commandline interpreter.

Prerequisites

Core library: A C99 compiler (no VLAs required), plus enough libc for malloc, realloc, free, memcpy, memset, and memmove. (Also, #pragma once must be supported.)

Command-line interpreter: The above, plus POSIX, and enough libc for the common string operations (strlen, strcmp, etc.)

Interactive terminal UI: The above, plus ncurses (or compatible curses library), and floating point support (for timing.) Optionally, PortMIDI can be used to enable direct MIDI output.

Quick Start for Debian/Raspbian (Raspberry Pi)

sudo apt-get install git libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev libportmidi-dev
git clone https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca-c.git
cd Orca-c
make                                   # Compile orca
build/orca --portmidi-list-devices     # Select MIDI device
build/orca --portmidi-output-device 2  # Start livecoding

Build

The build script is in bash. It should work with gcc (including the musl-gcc wrapper) and clang, and will automatically detect your compiler.

Currently known to build on macOS (gcc, clang) and Linux (gcc, musl-gcc, and clang, optionally with LLD), and Windows via cygwin or WSL (gcc or clang).

There is a fire-and-forget make wrapper around the build script.

PortMIDI is an optional dependency. It can be enabled by adding the option --portmidi when running the tool build script.

Mouse awareness can be disabled by adding the --no-mouse option.

Build using make

make release    # optimized build, binary placed at build/orca
make debug      # debugging build, binary placed at build/debug/orca
make clean      # removes build/

The make wrapper will enable --portmidi by default. If you run the tool build script on its own, --portmidi is not enabled by default.

Build using the tool build script

Run ./tool help to see usage info. Examples:

./tool build -c clang-7 --portmidi orca
    # Build the livecoding environment with a compiler
    # named clang-7, with optimizations enabled, and
    # with PortMIDI enabled for MIDI output.
    # Binary placed at build/orca

./tool build -d orca
    # Debug build of the livecoding environment.
    # Binary placed at build/debug/orca

./tool build -d cli
    # Debug build of the headless CLI interpreter.
    # Binary placed at build/debug/cli

./tool clean
    # Same as make clean. Removes build/

Run ORCΛ Livecoding Environment

Usage: orca [options] [file]

General options:
    --margins <nxn>        Set cosmetic margins.
                           Default: 2x1
    --undo-limit <number>  Set the maximum number of undo steps.
                           If you plan to work with large files,
                           set this to a low number.
                           Default: 100
    --initial-size <nxn>   When creating a new grid file, use these
                           starting dimensions.
    --bpm <number>         Set the tempo (beats per minute).
                           Default: 120
    --seed <number>        Set the seed for the random function.
                           Default: 1
    -h or --help           Print this message and exit.

OSC/MIDI options:
    --strict-timing
        Reduce the timing jitter of outgoing MIDI and OSC messages.
        Uses more CPU time.

    --osc-server <address>
        Hostname or IP address to send OSC messages to.
        Default: loopback (this machine)

    --osc-port <number or service name>
        UDP port (or service name) to send OSC messages to.
        This option must be set for OSC output to be enabled.
        Default: none

    --osc-midi-bidule <path>
        Set MIDI to be sent via OSC formatted for Plogue Bidule.
        The path argument is the path of the Plogue OSC MIDI device.
        Example: /OSC_MIDI_0/MIDI

Additional options are available if orca is built with --portmidi:

    --portmidi-list-devices
        List the MIDI output devices available through PortMIDI,
        along with each associated device ID number, and then exit.
        Do this to figure out which ID to use with
        --portmidi-output-device

    --portmidi-output-device <number>
        Set MIDI to be sent via PortMIDI on a specified device ID.
        Example: 1

Example: build and run orca liveocding environment with MIDI output

$ ./tool build --portmidi orca           # compile orca using build script
$ build/orca --portmidi-list-devices     # query for midi devices
ID: 3    Name: IAC Driver Bus
ID: 4    Name: USB MIDI Device
$ build/orca --portmidi-output-device 3  # run orca with midi device 3

Livecoding Environment Controls

┌ Controls ───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│           Ctrl+Q  Quit                              │
│       Arrow Keys  Move Cursor                       │
│     Ctrl+D or F1  Open Main Menu                    │
│   0-9, A-Z, a-z,  Insert Character                  │
│    !, :, =, #, *                                    │
│         Spacebar  Play/Pause                        │
│ Ctrl+Z or Ctrl+U  Undo                              │
│           Ctrl+X  Cut                               │
│           Ctrl+C  Copy                              │
│           Ctrl+V  Paste                             │
│           Ctrl+S  Save                              │
│           Ctrl+F  Frame Step Forward                │
│           Return  Append/Overwrite Mode             │
│                /  Key Trigger Mode                  │
│        ' (quote)  Rectangle Selection Mode          │
│ Shift+Arrow Keys  Adjust Rectangle Selection        │
│           Escape  Return to Normal Mode or Deselect │
│          ( and )  Resize Grid (Horizontal)          │
│          _ and +  Resize Grid (Vertical)            │
│          [ and ]  Adjust Grid Rulers (Horizontal)   │
│          { and }  Adjust Grid Rulers (Vertical)     │
│          < and >  Adjust BPM                        │
│                ?  Controls (this message)           │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

CLI interpreter

The CLI (cli binary) reads from a file and runs the orca simulation for 1 timestep (default) or a specified number (-t option) and writes the resulting state of the grid to stdout.

cli [-t timesteps] infile

You can also make cli read from stdin:

echo -e "...\na34\n..." | cli /dev/stdin

Extras

• Support this project through Patreon.
• See the License file for license rights and limitations (MIT).
• Pull Requests are welcome!