MidiLink 2.0 looking for testers. (no MIDI devices required)

[Paradroyd]

Don't sell yourself short... You were the one who originally got it working with FXCAST. You also mentioned that "intitialize modem" button being useful

My experience (as a programmer) is that it is a lot easier to fix a problem if you can reliably reproduce it, or better yet, demonstrate a work-around.

Ok..I'll take it!

Did quite a bit of BBSing with the ST core tonight, and it's working well.

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[Eero Tamminen]

Did quite a bit of BBSing with the ST core tonight, and it's working well.

Thanks for the pics, they look very nice!

Are there still active BBS services, or did you run also the BBS side somewhere?

[Paradroyd]

Did quite a bit of BBSing with the ST core tonight, and it's working well.

Thanks for the pics, they look very nice!

Are there still active BBS services, or did you run also the BBS side somewhere?

Yes..there are still a lot of active BBSs, and no, I do not personally run any of them.

Look here.

[PhantombrainM]

I've got a question about compatibility.

I can't get some games in DOS to work with midi. For example Doom.
Also I need to always use General Midi in setup of games, if I set games to Roland-MT32 for example it hang's up. (Space Quest 5, Leisure Suit Larry,...)

Is this all normal or is there a bad config going on somewhere in my settings?

[Hewhoisred]

Do you have the softMPU device driver loaded at DOS startup?

SOFTMPU.EXE /SB:220 /IRQ:5 /MPU:330 /OUTPUT:COM1

should appear somewhere in your autoexec.bat file.

Double check this page from the wiki:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_Mi ... o486-Cores

[NegSol]

I can't get some games in DOS to work with midi. For example Doom.

Doom midi music is not working for me, too.

My assumption here is that doom using its one memory manager software bypasses softmpu, But I also read that some get it to run in dosbox using softmpu. Strange.

[PhantombrainM]

Do you have the softMPU device driver loaded at DOS startup?

SOFTMPU.EXE /SB:220 /IRQ:5 /MPU:330 /OUTPUT:COM1

should appear somewhere in your autoexec.bat file.

Double check this page from the wiki:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_Mi ... o486-Cores

Yes, that's my setup. I read the wiki and readme over and over already. I even updated from QEMM 7 to 8.03
Midi/MP3/Wave is working when running from SSH with fluidsynth command (i also read all pages here) and it's working when selecting General Midi in games (sometimes) but DOS games hang when selecting Roland-MT32. So this seems to be a bug / not compatible and general Midi is just working for some games then?

So....better than nothing.

[BBond007]

Most games don't need the IRQ and some will have problems with this enabled.

SOFTMPU.EXE /MPU:330 /OUTPUT:COM1
vs
SOFTMPU.EXE /SB:220 /IRQ:5 /MPU:330 /OUTPUT:COM1

I have a menu in my CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT so I can pick either option.

This is the official list of SoftMPU supported games:

https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/wiki/C ... Mode-Games

Maybe some day ao486 will have a proper MP-401 and compatibility with MIDI will be greatly improved.

[Bartdesign]

Awesome work BBond007, i've been following your youtube video's for a while now

Any instructions how to setup midi in minimig? I've enabled midi in the MISTER settings and i've tried to change the sound driver of spacequest to mt32.drv, but it gives me an error that it cannot find the driver. Is there anything i need to install in my amiga image before i can use midi? I'm kind of new to amiga, so a little bit of help would be appreciated.

[BBond007]

Awesome work BBond007, i've been following your youtube video's for a while now

Any instructions how to setup midi in minimig? I've enabled midi in the MISTER settings and i've tried to change the sound driver of spacequest to mt32.drv, but it gives me an error that it cannot find the driver. Is there anything i need to install in my amiga image before i can use midi? I'm kind of new to amiga, so a little bit of help would be appreciated.

I mention setting up MIDI on the Amiga in the WIKI but there is not much to say... not much to do... nothing like ao486 anyway.

I suspect your games are missing the mt32.drv file (or something).

Many many years ago, when I first got my MT-32 and serial port MIDI adapter for my Amiga 1200. I found a bunch (like almost all) of my Amiga Sierra games in my collection were missing the MT-32 support.

[BBond007]

Hello,

I found a bug in the UDPMIDI.EXE application and I have updated it.

The MIDI device names in the combo-box were being repeated with whatever the first one was...

The source is now available here:

https://github.com/bbond007/UDPMIDI

[BBond007]

Hello!

C64 core is now capable of using the TCP (modem) option.

The maximum baud rate is currently 2400, however, UP9600 in the future has not been ruled out - Thanks ElectronAsh

I have included two test builds of the core.

C64_UART_DB - reassigns the HDD and USR LEDs to serial UART RX and TX respective to the C64 core.
C64_UART - HDD and USR LEDs operate normally.

Both cores currently disable gamepad 'D' due to conflicts.

I have also updated MidiLink (Ver 2.2) :

- Better compiler optimizations (for what its worth - MidiLink itself uses very little CPU)
- (Possibly) more efficient use of the ALSA MIDI byte stream parser (for FSYNTH/MUNT - snd_midi_event_encode() vs snd_midi_event_encode_byte())
- Found & fixed potential bug with possible uninitialized variable which could potentially cause TCP/UDP & USB MIDI to exit out with a bogus error. I never seen this error occur in the wild, but...
- TCP - ATHELP command (shows complete list of available AT commands)
- TCP - dialing directory (/media/fat/linux/MidiLink.DIR)
- TCP - ATDIR command (shows MidiLink.DIR)
- TCP - ATMIDSF command (change default FSYNTH_SOUNDFONT in MidiLink.INI)
- UDP - clear any stuck notes when starting (with UDPMIDI.EXE on Windows)

New MidiLink.INI options:

- MP3_VOLUME = 0 - 100% (volume level specific to MP3s)
- MT32_LCD_MSG = Custom message for MT-32 LCD, up to 20 chars (this is for real MT-32 or MUNT via UDP/UDPMIDI.EXE)
- TCP_FLOW = 0, 3, 4 (NONE, CTS/RTS, XON/XOFF)
- UDP_FLOW = 0, 3, 4 (NONE, CTS/RTS, XON/XOFF)

MidiLink.DIR example (/media/fat/linux/MidiLink.DIR):

#KEY / VALUE
c80 = commodore80
13th = 13th.hoyvision.com:6400
sky = skynetbbs.dynu.net:6400
rf = rapidfire.hopto.org:64128
867-5309 = jenny

As you know, I know have the 'MIDI' and 'MIDI-38K' options in the menu. I'm thinking of getting rid of 'MIDI-38K ' in favor of implementing different INI [sections] which apply per core.

For example, for regular MIDI, the ao486 requires 38400 baud (for SoftMPU) and Minimig and FXCAST require 31250 baud. C64 could theoretically even use MIDI. I prefer TCP at 115200 for Amiga and ao486, 119200 for FXCAST and now 2400 baud for the C64 core

Thanks for testing!

[ericgus]

Hello!

C64 core is now capable of using the TCP (modem) option.

The maximum baud rate is currently 2400, however, UP9600 in the future has not been ruled out - Thanks ElectronAsh

FANTASTIC!

It would be nice if there was an OSD/menu option to set the tcp baud rate without needed to manually edit the midilink.ini (say if you want to use tcp for 486/amiga/ST cores at 9600 .. but the c64 core at 2400).. someway to "set" the baudrate default like you can with a regular modem/wifimodem .. or maybe an "AT" command that configures the midilink.ini for you. ATB*2400 or ATB*9600 to set the baud, then a AT*W to "write" the current settings to the ini file. etc..

[Paradroyd]

Hello!

C64 core is now capable of using the TCP (modem) option.

The maximum baud rate is currently 2400, however, UP9600 in the future has not been ruled out - Thanks ElectronAsh

This is really great work!

I bounced between several different BBSs tonight using Striketerm on the 64 core and Procomm Plus on AO486 with no issues! The ST core is still acting unstable with it, but I don't think that's Midilink since it's only that core that seems to be having a problem. Everything else is working perfectly. Including the aliases.

Thanks again for your work on this!

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[NML32]

Could someone post some instruction on how they got their C64 connected to a BBS?

I downloaded both C64 cores and ran the updated midilink_updater.
I'm not sure what I'm missing.

Thanks

[BBond007]

Could someone post some instruction on how they got their C64 connected to a BBS?

I downloaded both C64 cores and ran the updated midilink_updater.
I'm not sure what I'm missing.

Thanks

Did you add 'TCP_BAUD = 2400' to /media/fat/linux/MidiLink.INI ?

[duhproject]

Hello!

C64 core is now capable of using the TCP (modem) option.

The maximum baud rate is currently 2400, however, UP9600 in the future has not been ruled out - Thanks ElectronAsh

Got it working this morning with no issues!! This is awesome work -- I really appreciate it.

[NML32]

Did you add 'TCP_BAUD = 2400' to /media/fat/linux/MidiLink.INI ?

Yes.
I've tried both PPP and Console UART Mode setting in the OSD.

[BBond007]

Yes.
I've tried both PPP and Console UART Mode setting in the OSD.

"PPP" and "Console" are configured to run at 115200 by default. Too fast for the C64...

Anyway, I have no idea what kind of TCP/IP stacks are available for C64 for PPP.

To make "Console" work you would need change the baud rate in /sbin/uartmode.

To call a BBS you would use the following OSD UART settings:

Connection : MIDI
MidiLink : Remote
Type : TCP

From your C64 terminal program you 'dial' using the "ATDT" command.

ATDTskynetbbs.dynu.net:6400

Hope that helps

[NML32]

That’s good info. I was confused about the OSD settings.
Thanks

[ericgus]

I know the C64 core with MidiLink/TCP is still experimental but I just wanted to report I have been testing it a great deal over the weekend and its still somewhat prone to crashing (both using CCGMS 2019/Ultimate and StrikeLink 2014) .. though strikelink seems a bit more robust I have had it crash on a few BBS, Centronian BBS, Afterlife BBS .. CCGMS will often just crash to the "READY" prompt, or sometimes you get a blurb of random PETSCII in the middle of output .. sometimes you just get a full screen of random characters with the c64 crash. .. Not sure if there is still some work that need to happen with buffering the serial data but I just wanted to report my experiences so far (and I know work is still ongoing).. Thanks for adding this. When it works its brilliant and much appreciated.

[BBond007]

I know the C64 core with MidiLink/TCP is still experimental but I just wanted to report I have been testing it a great deal over the weekend and its still somewhat prone to crashing...

You can try this newer build with C64_20190208 changes:

[ericgus]

I know the C64 core with MidiLink/TCP is still experimental but I just wanted to report I have been testing it a great deal over the weekend and its still somewhat prone to crashing...

You can try this newer build with C64_20190208 changes:

thanks ill give it a go later tonight and let you know..!

[Paradroyd]

I know the C64 core with MidiLink/TCP is still experimental but I just wanted to report I have been testing it a great deal over the weekend and its still somewhat prone to crashing (both using CCGMS 2019/Ultimate and StrikeLink 2014) .. though strikelink seems a bit more robust I have had it crash on a few BBS, Centronian BBS, Afterlife BBS .. CCGMS will often just crash to the "READY" prompt, or sometimes you get a blurb of random PETSCII in the middle of output .. sometimes you just get a full screen of random characters with the c64 crash. .. Not sure if there is still some work that need to happen with buffering the serial data but I just wanted to report my experiences so far (and I know work is still ongoing).. Thanks for adding this. When it works its brilliant and much appreciated.

I should probably chime in and say I've seen a few of these things too, maybe to a lesser degree. I was going to wait until I could quantify it a little better and look for patterns, etc.

As far as I can tell, the instability seems to be with the 64 core itself, or in other components only when the 64 core is active. I'd imagine that pumping serial data though it as it's never been done before is stressing parts of the core that haven't been used this way until now.

I'll update to the new version posted here, then try some things like connecting to a local server and streaming data in and out and trying to see if these things are maybe happening at or near a specific interval, or maybe when an approximate amount of data has passed in or out, when various buffers get overrun, etc.

At any rate, I'm still glad that this is available. It's already immensely useful as it is, iIMO.

I'll let you know what I find (or don't find).

[ericgus]

I know the C64 core with MidiLink/TCP is still experimental but I just wanted to report I have been testing it a great deal over the weekend and its still somewhat prone to crashing...

You can try this newer build with C64_20190208 changes:

these work a lot better so far, no crashing even with CCGMS Ultimate 2019 .. however I do get the odd garbled text on occasion so something is still a little out of kilter with the core but its waaaaaaay more stable now .. eg its actually usable without fear of it crashing during use..

testing is ongoing ..