Re: Show us your custom Physical mt32-pi Builds

Posted on 2021-04-30, 03:06

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by Shreddoc

in MT-32 General

in MT-32 General

Late-April 2021 updates about my amateur builds: build1.JPG My initial build (shown above) - "retrofit the components into an existing redundant item's case" - succeeded by re-purposing junk to cheaply make a clean device which had the no-frills functionality to Just Be An MT-32. In that respect I'm …

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Re: What is your unconscious motive for retro hardware ?

Posted on 2021-04-29, 21:26

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

Further to the above / in a similar vein : I hate how inefficient and wasteful modern computing is. The thought occurred to me the other day, as I sat watching a Progress Bar crawl forwards. One of the thousands of various Progress Bars we all sit wasting small portions of our lives in front of. And …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2021-04-29, 20:29

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

Play Pillars of Eternity I & II :) Yeah I've got a fair idea who will show up :) - one person anyway - based on whispers I heard earlier bouncing around the game-o-sphere! Going to have to check that out one day! So many RPGs to catch up on. For example I'm about to embark upon Breath of the Wild, …

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Re: Incorporate custom SYSEX into MIDI playlist, for changing MT32-pi soundfonts between tracks

Posted on 2021-04-29, 07:55

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi, 1. You said you used FSMP for playback. In the right click context menu of the playlist you can find 'Pause between Songs' and you can set 0,1,2,3 sec. pause so setting delay in the Midi file itself is not so necessary. I think 2 sec. delay between Midi files is ideal regardless of soundfont …

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Re: Incorporate custom SYSEX into MIDI playlist, for changing MT32-pi soundfonts between tracks

Posted on 2021-04-29, 06:23

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Spent some time reading about the granular detail of the MIDI file format. Had to skim over some parts as it's a bit of a rabbit-hole, and I don't really want to invent the whole world just to have a cup of tea (you know how it is). Made a couple of initial attempts at manually constructing a …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2021-04-28, 06:15

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

The emotional/character commitment to those games increased when you played through the series transferring your party of characters from game to game. Reading all the Forgotten Realms books at the time also fleshed out the world hugely in the imagination (+ book/game crossovers and cameos which …

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Re: Incorporate custom SYSEX into MIDI playlist, for changing MT32-pi soundfonts between tracks

Posted on 2021-04-28, 03:48

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hmm, so it needs to be MIDI but needs to include sysex data? I think just capturing / trimming a MIDI capture of the output of mt32-pi-control should achieve that. The syntax for the sysex messages looks simple enough, but making that into a MIDI seems pretty complicated, comparing it with a …

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[SOLVED] Incorporate custom SYSEX into MIDI playlist, for changing MT32-pi soundfonts between tracks

Posted on 2021-04-27, 02:02

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've made an MT32-pi device, and loaded a set of cool soundfonts into it. It's a lot of fun to have a MIDI playlist (e.g. in Falcosoft MIDI Player) and listen to your favourite tracks, occasionally pressing the physical "Change Soundfont" button on the device to change to a particular track's ideal …

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Re: X2GS : Waveblaster board with dual soundbank support, official Dream/Roland licensed GS bank

Posted on 2021-04-26, 22:56

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I wouldn't say "exactly like" but "very very similar" , there are some differences but for gaming usage you might get the odd weirdness or two but 99% of the time the result will be great Can the differences or 'weirdness' be described? It would also be great to hear this Roland bank A/B against an …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2021-04-24, 22:56

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Partway through constructing another amateur MT32-pi build. Plastic jiffy boxes are annoying to cut neat holes in. From my research, it seems the world agrees on this. That is all. Took my mom (85) to hospital, she fell this morning. All is good no serious damage but could have been. Spent the …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2021-04-21, 22:57

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

where combat eventually got to the point where all you were doing was hitting x times every round because your were simply the best option at all times. This to me fundamentally describes the type of grind which makes a subset of older games (and no doubt, newer ones too) difficult to commit to. …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2021-04-17, 21:38

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

How would people describe the unique appeals of the Ultima games? Because I could never get into them as a youngster in the 80s/90s. Despite playing tons of other role playing games and loving fantasy novels, etc. I just felt like a complete bored, clueless idiot in any Ultima game I tried. I would …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2021-04-17, 18:23

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

How would people describe the unique appeals of the Ultima games? Because I could never get into them as a youngster in the 80s/90s. Despite playing tons of other role playing games and loving fantasy novels, etc. I just felt like a complete bored, clueless idiot in any Ultima game I tried. I would …

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Re: What is your unconscious motive for retro hardware ?

Posted on 2021-04-16, 21:55

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

A lot of us have touched on personal nostalgia, which is of course one of (if not the) primary motivations. --- Thinking deeper about that reasoning, I think there may be a sub-element of that : namely, The Re-do, The Do-over . That is something we cannot do with our own lives. We cannot literally …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2021-04-15, 13:57

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

That's a good excuse for those middle aged people, though I firmly hold the opinion that not everything is for everyone and accessibility isn't always a good thing. It's also takes me often over 3 or 4 months to get through a longer game (according to achievements KDC took me from June 20 to …

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Re: Shipping CRT monitors: a success story (for a change)

Posted on 2021-04-15, 13:08

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wrote this blog post as a public service, after finally receiving a CRT (IBM 5153) that wasn't all smashed to bits by incompetence along the way: https://int10h.org/blog/2021/04/safe-crt-monitor-shipping-5153-makes-it/ It goes into the details on the packing, boxing and shipping, for the one that …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2021-04-13, 21:49

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah you likely wouldn't have such luck if it was (for example) gear from the early 2000's, imo! If my past year's experiences with several such systems are any indication. I'm now tossing up whether or not to bother going to the trouble of recapping Northwood and Prescott systems. Purely from a …

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Re: Cloning the AdLib Gold Surround Sound Module

Posted on 2021-04-12, 23:08

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Also I think there's a certain price-point at which it becomes nonviable, assuming it was done with the end-goal of small-run sales in a similar manner to the Orpheus card. (for a fully-committed cost-doesn't-matter prototype or POC, obviously that would not be so relevant) In my hastily-thought …

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Re: Retro confessions. What are yours?

Posted on 2021-04-12, 22:54

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by Shreddoc

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hey there, This os my very first post here and when I saw this thread I figured it would be nicer to start with a confession to introduce myself rather than a "help me" first post. So, I must confess that by browsing many of these threads ( ' been lurking for a while now... ) I realized I don't …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2021-04-11, 23:51

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by Shreddoc

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Lessons learned? If you dare to play with your cmos or bios settings to much your going to have a day full of trouble shooting if it goes wrong even if it seemingly has no reason to go wrong. Sometimes, the admirable drive to play with old frail hardware can result in a circumstance where you …

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