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A companion to BEP2MID, Piano is a Q-Basic program which turns the computer keyboard into a monophonic, somewhat unrealistic piano keyboard. Will work only in DOS (real or virtual) - it uses direct port I/O to read the keyboard and produce sound through the internal speaker (no sound card required).

The inspiration for this program came originally from a vaguely similar program in a science magazine. The original, however, made all notes the same length, and had such a limited range that it was hardly usable. With this piano, however, a note is on as long as you hold the key (well, fairly accurately - Piano polls the port as I can't do interrupts in QBasic, so if there's a delay in response there will be a delay in the sound stopping/starting). Only one note can be played at a time, due to limitations both in the keyboard port and in the sound production.

File: PIANO.ZIP
Requires: QBASIC.
Installation: None.
Operation: Run in QBASIC.EXE. If PIANO.DAT is not in the current directory, you won't hear much sound!
De-installation: Delete PIANO.BAS and PIANO.DAT.
Distribution: Freeware.