jaZz_KCS wrote:

This just sounds too good to be true.

It should be possible to make a native MIDI driver for Win3.x... the driver itself is probably not very difficult: you get MIDI bytes from the Windows MIDI mapper interface, and you output them to the printer port.
But I have no idea what tools would be required, or what such a MIDI driver has to look like for Windows 3.x. I wonder if it's still possible to find documentation on that, perhaps even a sample.
I have a copy of Visual C++ 1.52, I could check if it has the required documentation. But it might require some Windows DDK that I don't have.
Edit: Perhaps these are useful: https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-sdk-ddk/windows-31

You might want to ask the Wine people. They probably know the APIs in and out.

Maybe it helps

Here is a Driver with Sourcecode that plays MIDI on the PC-Speaker.

Its written in DELPHI 1.0.

Here is some Discussion:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-50867.html

I also own S2P and its cool.
Doom runs with Patcher 😉

Wohooo!
Scali wrote a great blog article on S2P : https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2019/03/09/dreamblaster-s2p/

S2P demo of midi playback and DOS games with softmpu mt32 mode , by Ki-Hyun Cho : https://youtu.be/VasXlFR-FKQ
- monkey island : https://youtu.be/VasXlFR-FKQ?t=494
- police quest 2 : https://youtu.be/VasXlFR-FKQ?t=645
- zeliard : https://youtu.be/VasXlFR-FKQ?t=813

What can be patched with s2ppatch currently? I was hoping I could use it with early MT-32 games on a Tandy 1000

Unfortunately, patching games for S2P support turned out to be a bit too difficult. s2ppatch only supports two audio engines:
- the DMX engine, used by Doom / Heretic / Raptor: Call of the Shadows
- some versions of the Miles Sound System.
If your games come with a 'mt32mpu.adv' file you're in luck. If not, I'm afraid it won't work.
The recommended way to use the S2P is with softmpu, but that of course requires a 386.

I see some discussion of a Windows 3.1 driver. I believe Microsoft in fact published the source code of some of the basic Windows 3.1 sound drivers as part of the Multimedia SDK. Modifying them should be 'doable' for somebody with Windows 3.1 C+asm programming experience...

pdw wrote:

Unfortunately, patching games for S2P support turned out to be a bit too difficult.

Perhaps the good ole FPU emulators could give us a hand?
The MPU-401 interface basically only has two ports: 330h and 331h.
Each port can be read and written to. So you have a total of 4 different entry points into the MPU-401 state machine.
Now, let's say you create 4 int handlers:
int 30h: read port 330h
int 31h: read port 331h
int 32h: write port 330h
int 33h: write port 331h

Now you could create a TSR that implements the MPU-401, that can be loaded before the patched game.
Patching itself is reasonably simple: just find all reads and writes to port 330h and 331h, and patch them in-place with the proper int-call.
For UART mode, the TSR should be quite trivial.
For intelligent mode, I suppose the biggest problem is handling the timing. If any game reprograms the timer, you can't use it. Not too many games do, it seems, but still.
That makes me wonder... would a DreamBlaster S2P 2.0 be possible? One that has some kind of timer built-in, which can be read back by the TSR? Perhaps even generating interrupts on the LPT at a given interval, so it would be relatively easy to implement the timing required for intelligent mode?
Then you'd be able to get around the 386+ requirement for SoftMPU.

Scali wrote on 2018-02-05, 11:01:

I've never written a driver for Win3.x, but I have written a MIDI driver for Windows 10, based on MUNT.
So based on that code, it should be possible to make it output to a DreamBlaster S2P.

If someone has some example code for a MIDI driver for Win3.1, then perhaps we can get that working as well.

Hi
Andri made an updated win 3.11 midi driver for opl3lpt...
https://github.com/andreiw/adlib21
maybe it can inspire ?

not really, as driver was already existing, he just changed the io part to lpt 😀

This is Microsoft Adlib Driver 😀

Is the MPU driver also opensource ? it would be very similar to modify it..

matze79 wrote on 2020-02-12, 18:40:

Is the MPU driver also opensource ? it would be very similar to modify it..

Please make this happen, if possible. As the Win3.1/3.11 driver opens up a whole new world of opportunities for the OPLxLPT, so would a driver in the same veins for the Dreamblaster S2P. Imagine giving 386 luggables without a sound card the luxury of midi within Windows 3.1/3.11 paired with the PC speaker sound driver..

The S2P is an external device that also requires power. I don't see why on a "386 luggable" you could not just connect a GM module over the serial port instead. This will work in Win3.1 just fine.

Apart from that, with SoftMPU, the S2P should work in Win3.1 already.

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-13, 09:37:

Apart from that, with SoftMPU, the S2P should work in Win3.1 already.

Could you please elaborate on that? Last time I checked, SoftMPU does not support Windows 3.1/3.11... at all. Something to do with with EMM386 making this impossible, iirc.

So how would I be able to use the S2P under Windows 3.11?

Hm win /s will not work with emm386 in protect mode ?

Could you please elaborate on that? Last time I checked, SoftMPU does not support Windows 3.1/3.11... at all. Something to do with with EMM386 making this impossible, iirc.

Not sure what you mean. SoftMPU needs EMM386 and Windows 3.1 even comes with it. I don't see where it should conflict. The readme file of SoftMPU doesn't state any incompatibilities with Win3.1 either. The only thing you should not do is installing the MPU-401 driver that comes with Windows, as that is for the actual Roland interface card.

the adlipt tsr also does not work with windows 3.x, and it also uses port trapping etc.
so i guess softmpu will also not work with windows midi.

Here is some Info about it:
Re: SoftMPU build for Windows support?

so indeed a windows driver is needed to achieve s2p midi in 3.x

matze79 wrote on 2020-02-13, 14:27:

Here is some Info about it:
Re: SoftMPU build for Windows support?

so indeed a windows driver is needed to achieve s2p midi in 3.x

That's what I remembered. I also remember trying it before reading that and never got it to work.

Retro Erik made a review of S2P, it shows S2P with a lot of games ! : https://youtu.be/bI-TJjKvv_Y