downloaded an early 90's pc game, music open in ModPlug!!! WTF???

[moltres_rider]

I downloaded "Lotus Turbo Challenge" an early 90's computer game I downloaded from the internet (abandonware) I noticed 10 files that had the ModPlug module icon... and they DO open and play in ModPlug and it is the EXACT music in the game!!! no different and no different than what it sounded playing the game in the early 90s!!! I downloaded the game to relive my experience playing the game when I was only 7 or 8!!! these modules seem to be fully editable and samples are extractable!!! these files are .mod format (which I never knew ModPlug opens that format as I never heard of .mod!!! I always thought they were just a game file in the game itself!!!


my question is... why can ModPlug open these game music files??? and were they intended for programs like this back then??? and did a program like ModPlug exist back then??? or was .mod used for something different back then and it just so happens it works in ModPlug???

[Saga Musix]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracker_%28music_software%29
.MOD is the mother of all module formats, of course OpenMPT can open and edit it. Virtually all games on the Amiga back then used tracked music in the MOD format (and similar formats) and there hundreds of programs to edit .MOD files.

.mod format (which I never knew ModPlug opens that format as I never heard of .mod!!!

To enricht your knowledge of what kind of file formats are supported by OpenMPT, you could have a look at the features overview.

[moltres_rider]

and there hundreds of programs to edit .MOD files.

even back then???

[Saga Musix]

Especially back then. The late 80s and early 90s were the golden days of tracking, since there was no other way of producing high quality music on a computer without resorting to external gear. OpenMPT's roots are in this period of time (mid-90s), when many computer musicians were still using trakcers to create their music.

[Harbinger]

As a matter of fact, think of all our tracking formats as a multibranched tree. MOD is the trunk of that tree, with a large bough branching off for the S3M -> IT -> MPTM file formats. The MOD format relied on a small set of FX commands plus a very tight way of structured data in the file and is still being used today (but not as much, since we have more formats to choose from with more or different features). The MOD format, one could argue, might be obsolescent but not obsolete. Eventually one branch will become the "industry" norm and that's when the tree metaphor will end.

BTW, i was just as amazed at MPT's ability to open (import) UT99 .utx files, and it opened a whole new side of composition for me that MPT made easier, and one might say i may have never discovered if it weren't for the open side of Modplug!