A tracker is a music program where the song is a grid: time runs down the page in rows, each channel gets a column, and every cell holds a note, an instrument, a volume and an effect. You are not recording a performance — you are writing a small program that plays samples.
Scream Tracker was written by Sami Tammilehto — Psi, the same person who wrote most of Second Reality’s engine — modelled on the Amiga’s Soundtracker, in C and assembly.
1990 version 2.2, the first widely used release .STM files 1994 version 3, and the format that mattered .S3M, 18 April 1994 version 3.21 — the tracker’s last release, and Future Crew’s last release of any kind
Its influence outran the program. ST3’s interface is the direct ancestor of Impulse Tracker’s, and S3M became a format the whole scene supported — modern players still read it, including the one on this board.
SECOND REALITY’S MUSIC
Two S3M modules, both by Purple Motion. MUSIC0 is “UnreaL ][ - The 2ND Reality”, which carries the intro; MUSIC1 takes over at the glenz vectors. The demo’s visuals are slaved to the music’s own position rather than to a clock, which is why the wipes land on the beat.
AND IT PLAYS, ON THE NEXT SCREEN
[2] is not a picture of a tracker. It is ST3 playing Second Reality’s own two modules — the same files the demo plays, read out of the same directory, and it sounds because it is being played rather than described.
The pattern grid you watch is the grid being played: the highlighted row is whatever row the audio engine says it is on, reported back from the audio thread, not a second copy of the song being simulated alongside it. Scroll the channels, hold one pattern the way ST3’s play-pattern key does, step the order list, switch modules mid-note.
Including the part of MUSIC0 nobody was meant to reach: the order list has a 255 “---” terminator with another sequence sitting behind it, which ordinary playback stops short of. The demo jumps into it deliberately. On this board it is simply in the list, and you can play it.