Pulsar Operation Manual

### Glossary: Terminology

##### A |
ADSR | stands for 'Attack Decay Sustain Release' and describes a type of envelope. ADSR Envelopes are used in Pulsar to shape the amplitude of Tracks A, B & D
Arpeggio | (generally) notes of a chord repeated in quick succession, often looped
##### B |
BPM | stands for 'beats per minute'. Often used in sequencers/recording devices to describe the tempo/speed of a track or song.
##### C |
Chain | sequence of Pattern numbers
##### D |
Duty | pulse width setting for Track A & B
##### F |
Frame | Steps are divided into ticks, the number of ticks depending on Song Speed, Table Speed etc. Sometimes known as a 'tick'
##### M |
MultiFX | a multi-voice Table
##### P |
Pattern | sequence of notes and commands
##### S |
Step | one row of a Song, Chain, Pattern, Table etc.
##### T |
Table | sequence of pitch, volume and Commands
Tick | Steps are divided into ticks, the number of ticks depending on Song Speed, Table Speed etc. Sometimes known as a 'frame' which refers to the refresh speed of the audio engine happening once per video refresh (60hz for NTSC, 50hz for PAL)
##### V |
VU Meter | stands for Volume Unit meter. Often seen on mixing desks to show you the real-time level of each channel
##### U |
UI | stands for User Interface. Often used as GUI which means 'graphical user interface' but as Pulsar's interface doesn't really contain any graphics, I describe it as just 'UI'

### Glossary: Hexadecimal and Binary Numbers

Hexadecimal is a base-16 number system (decimal is base-10) so each single digit goes from 0 to 15. Digits 10 to 15 are represented by the letters A to F.

##### Binary

Binary is a base-2 number system where each digit can either be `0` or `1`. From right-to-left the digits represent 2 to the power of 0 to 7, that is 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128.

Decimal | Hexadecimal | Binary
0 | 00 | 00000000
1 | 01 | 00000001
2 | 02 | 00000010
3 | 03 | 00000011
4 | 04 | 00000100
5 | 05 | 00000101
6 | 06 | 00000110
7 | 07 | 00000111
8 | 08 | 00001000
9 | 09 | 00001001
10 | 0A | 00001010
11 | 0B | 00001011
12 | 0C | 00001100
13 | 0D | 00001101
14 | 0E | 00001110
15 | 0F | 00001111
16 | 10 | 00010000
17 | 11 | 00010001
18 | 12 | 00010010
19 | 13 | 00010011

...and so on until:

Decimal | Hexadecimal | Binary
253 | FD | 11111101
254 | FE | 11111110
255 | FF | 11111111

As you can see, the highest unsigned number in 8-bits is 255 (or FF or 11111111).

The most common way to represent signed numbers is using "Two's Complement".

### Glossary: Two's Complement (8-bit signed numbers)

Two's Complement is used to represent signed 8-bit numbers. The explanation of how this is achieved is not for this manual but here's a handy guide to get you started.

Decimal | Two's Complement (Hex)
0 to 127 | 00 to 7F
-1 to -128 | FF to 80