First post, by radiance32
Hi all,
I am looking for one or more people who have a PC compatible machine with any of the following CPUs: 8086, 8088, NEC v20, NEC v30, 80186,
to help me test a brand new version of the modified GM driver for Sierra SCI0 games that is patched to allow sierra SCI0 games to drive
a Serdaco S2P GM MIDI parallel port synth.
The driver was only working on 286 and up systems, and several people have helped me debugging the driver to make it work on pre 286 CPUs.
I have tested the newly fixed driver on my HP 200LX palmtop with a 80186 CPU, and it's work fine, however, it should now also work with other pre-286 CPUs.
I have produced a video of 15 minutes of Leisure Suit Larry III running on my HP 200LX Palmtop PC with a PCMCIA -> parallel port adapter and a Serdaco S2P,
on my brand-new "HP Palmtop tube" YouTube video channel for HP DOS Palmtop enthusiasts.
It's worth watching as it shows the reasonably successful re-mapping of the game's MT-32 instruments to GM instruments, and it sounds pretty good,
it's different than an MT-32 for sure, the instruments sound different, but the music is definately ok and very good as background game music:
YouTube: HP 200LX with S2P GM MIDI synth plays Leisure Suit Larry 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnBLijJ87EE
If you have the required hardware, would you mind installing one of the SCI0 games, I will provide a list of these games here:
Leisure Suit Larry II and III
Police Quest 2
Space Quest 3
King's Quest 4
Hero's Quest 1 (also called Quest for Glory 1, note that Hero's Quest 2 will not work with this driver as it's not a pure SCI0 generation game)
You can download the driver here:
https://github.com/pdewacht/s2ptools/releases/tag/20211031
(it's in the s2ptools.zip archive, originally called the RAVI GM.DRV driver, now called the S2P.DRV driver)
Just copy the S2P.DRV file into the game directory and run the install binary that comes with the game,
and you should see a GM over LPT driver you can select from the list of soundcards supported.
Then, make sure your S2P is connected to your LPT1 parallel port and fire up the game.
I would really appreciate it if you could please post your experience, your system specifications (including the exact type of CPU you have) and if the game and S2P GM MIDI sound works or not, or any other anomaly.
If it works fine, please also make a post so we know it works on a system like yours...
It's pretty important having a driver for pre 286 CPU systems as many people who will want to use a parallel port GM MIDI sound card will be using it on an old and/or portable machine,
which likely won't have a 286 or higher CPU...
Thank you very much for you time in helping me out,
I'm looking forward to reading other users experiences in this thread...
Yours,
radiance32
PS: Check out my brand new youtube channel, it's only been up for about 2 weeks now,
it's called the "HP Palmtop Tube" channel and it's a channel focused on MS-DOS Palmtops from HP from the early 90's.
There's videos of the S2P, OPL3LPT and CVX4 (covox clone) playing games and MOD files on the HP 200LX palmtop,
and I published a long, detailed and narrated video of Ventura Publisher the day before yesterday...
Here's the channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ
I could use more views, likes and subscribers, to get the channel off the ground 😀
Check out my new HP 100/200LX Palmtop YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCVChzZ62a-c4MdJWyRwdCQ