Hi everyone, I’m just getting into playing old DOS / Windows games from the Win98 era and would like Mt32/sc sound etc.

I’ve seen some great setups online - I want to configure a windows 10 tablet to run all the synth emulation and then pipe the midi music output from the headphone out of the tablet back to the T42 line in/mic in to mix with the SFX on the T42.

The question I have is how do I get the midi music out of the T42? I’ve bought the Roland um-one midi USB interface to connect to the tablet. To get midi out of the T42 I think I have a few options:

1: buy the expensive IBM dock ii with pci slot and populate with a PCI sound card with joystick DB15 port. I can then connect to the um-one using a db15 to midi cable with a midi coupler. This solution will cost the most and won’t be portable so it’s not ideal.

2: get a pcmcia joystick game port card? These are not available new and I’m not sure whether midi music will play out of the db15 port since it’s not a music pcmcia card. Windows would need to magically pipe the t42 music out through the pcmcia db-15 port?

3: get a Rockport USB to gameport adapter. Again I’m not sure this would work since there is no audio chip on the game port adaptor but I do see the word MIDI on the eBay listings for the rock port device so maybe windows 98 will automatically pipe onboard T42 music through the rock port device?

4: get another Um-one USB interface for the T42 and connect to the um-one from the tablet using a midi coupler. Not sure this would work since it’s win98 host and no drivers (unless it can use the built in win 98 drivers) but again I don’t know whether win 98 will pipe out the inbuilt T42 midi music through the um-one?

5: get a midi parallel port device and connect to the parallel port on the T42? Something like a S2p from serdashop? Or a opl3lpt? Cost is a little expensive however but these have opl chips on the device I believe and are win98 compatible. Not sure if the product is appropriate since the opl3lpt has a 3.5mm audio out and does not output a midi signal?

Are there any other options available? The T42 is listed as having a Analog Devices AD1981A AC'97 SoundMAX Codec (Full-duplex) which is
AC97 2.2 compatible.

I assume I’ll need to use SoftMPU which I believe makes a physical opl redundant? Using SoftMPu would be ideal if it can be utilised somehow using an interface from the T42 to the tablet running synth emu software.

Thanks in advance for any help or comments!