First post, by 95DosBox
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- Member
In my retro legacy testing of Munt and the port of Munt to 9X some issues I feel need to be addressed.
One of the main issues is software compatibility. While in the 9X environment, 95OEM, 95A, 95B, 98FE, 98SE, and Millenium Edition the need for a graphics card driver to run Munt shouldn't be necessary.
Another possibility to run in GUI mode is to use only 2 colors or up to 16 colors mode only as a requirement. The default built in 16 Color Standard VGA driver should work. Also 9x allows you downgrade to 2 color mode B/W which makes the OS run super fast especially for older systems. Having both of these modifications will make it more MUNT more compatible as a standalone sound emulator.
Sergm,
I'm proposing the Text Mode Interface for Munt. I'm hoping you can take this design and add it to Munt so the user can choose the User Interface (Text Mode or GUI) version to run Munt. This setting can be changed in the Munt.ini file I will be explaining in detail.
Munt typically will not run without a compliant graphical OS driver to attain the 256 colors requirement and DOSBox also does not run correctly without one.
However Munt shouldn't require any OS graphics driver to be installed to function properly so if we can create an alternate user interface that doesn't depend on it it would allow any computer legacy or modern to run Munt as a MT-32 Sound Emulation device only without any need for a specific 9X compliant graphics card driver installed. Later this might be ported to Windows 3.1 and DOS.
Here is the Munt Text Mode Interface Look:
Unfortunately due to the way ASCII characters are interpreted on this forum I'm including a
NotePad Text File to download to see the actual Ascii Characters as intended using the Font MS LineDraw
You must use Notepad and the Font: MS LineDraw
20 Squares for Text Panel Info for Sierra Sys Ex Messages Compatibility
This is a substitute version on this forum though not as ASCII pretty but viewable on this forum and will have spacing alignment issues.
New Text Mode Munt Interface Font Lucida Console
Font:
Lucida Console
Dimensions:
27x8 characters
[PANEL ASCII Text Mode] - POWER ON TEST DISPLAY OR NO ROMS CHOSEN
===========================
|=========================|
||Unknown Emulation Mode||
||[12345678901234567890] ||
||[PROPERTIES] [MIDI MSG]||
|=========================|
| MIDI VOLUME SETTING:100 |
===========================
[FINAL OUTPUT DISPLAYED] - NO MIDI SIGNAL RECEIVED
===========================
|=========================|
||MT-32 Emulation Mode||
||[1 2 3 4 5 R |vol:100] ||
||[PROPERTIES] [--------]||
|=========================|
| MIDI VOLUME SETTING:100 |
===========================
[INSTRUMENT OUTPUT DISPLAYED] - MIDI SIGNAL RECEIVED
===========================
|=========================|
||MT-32 Emulation Mode||
||[8|Synth-1|Glasses ] ||
||[PROPERTIES] [MIDI MSG]||
|=========================|
| MIDI VOLUME SETTING:100 |
===========================
[INSTRUMENT PLAYING OUTPUT DISPLAYED] - MIDI SIGNAL RECEIVED
===========================
|=========================|
||MT-32 Emulation Mode||
||[1 * 3 * 5 R |vol:100] ||
||[PROPERTIES] [MIDI MSG]||
|=========================|
| MIDI VOLUME SETTING:100 |
===========================
* = indicates active channel
When a Midi Message signal is encountered it will display the text
"MIDI MSG" on or off depending if receiving a MIDI Message Signal.
The actual MIDI Text will of course be displayed in the
20 characters space marked by the [12345678901234567890] Panel space
Attached will be the correct ASCII look using the Font:
MS LineDraw