MUS (Electronic Arts)

[[Category: Formats With {{{Header}}} Headers]] [[Category: Formats With {{{Content}}} Content]] [[Category: Formats With {{{Instruments}}} Instruments]]

MUS (Electronic Arts)
Developer:	Electronic Arts, Inc.
Header:	{{{Header}}}
Content:	{{{Content}}}
Instruments:	{{{Instruments}}}
Target Output
Released:	1989/??/??
First Game:	Cartooners (DOS)
Extensions	*.mus

This music format was used by Electronic Arts form 1989 to 1992. Below is technical specs on the format so that programmers may write a player for the format.

This music format uses the extension *.mus in "Cartooners" and the "Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes", but "Ski or Die" and "The Immortal" use a generic *.bin extension.

The MT-32 driver of "Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes" actually mentions "Ski or Die", by name, inside of it, probably from reused code.

Games

Released	Title	Sample
1989/??/??	Cartooners (DOS)
1990/??/??	Ski or Die (DOS)
1991/??/??	The Immortal (DOS)
1992/??/??	The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel (DOS)

Technical

Most MUS files begin with '7F 00 00 01' except Cartooners which begins with '7D 00 00 01'. Then, there are several bytes of 01s or 00s. These are probably flags of some sort.

The MUS files from The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes being with 12 spaces (0x20) before the '7F 00 00 01' string.

"The Immortal" has a completely different header and data style. Perhaps it's compressed?

At 0x13 a different type of header data begins.

Each header contains a string similar to 'rsxx}u'. In the Cartooners it starts at 0x6D. In Ski or Die and Sherlock it begins at 0x6F.

"The Immortal" begins this string at 0x49, but the 'rsx' and 'x}u' are separated with 0xE7.

There are then 10 null bytes, and then the data begins.

The binary data of the MUS format is very similar to a MIDI file. There are four bytes for each group. The data can be converted to MIDI 1-to-1.

Once again, "The Immortal" has a different style to it. Also, "Ski or Die" is formatted a little differently.

All of the files end with 'FC 80' or 'FC 81'.