MT32-PI.EXE DOS utility (now also for Amiga, Atari ST, Linux, and Windows)

[gmcn42]

Hi everyone!

I made a CLI control utility running in real-mode DOS for use with mt32-pi :). I did it mostly out of retro-programming curiosity but I am quite happy with the result. It's primarily meant to be used in game-specific batch files, i.e. to choose mode/romset/soundfont and/or send GM/GS/MT-32 reset sequences before starting a game.

Additionally it supports sending screen text in MT-32 mode and SC-55 style 16x16 pixel screen images (whoa:wink:) in SoundFont mode.

Usage Summary

USAGE: MT32-PI.EXE [OPTIONS]
OPTIONS:
  -h/--help: Print this info.
  -v/--verbose: Be verbose about what is going on.
  -r/--reboot: Reboot the Pi. Will block for a few secs to give it time.
  -p/--port [ADDR]: Set the port address of the MPU401 interface. Default: 330.
  -m/--mt32: Switch mt32-pi to MT-32 mode.
  -g/--fluidsynth: Switch mt32-pi to FluidSynth mode.
  -b/--romset [old, new, cm32l]: Switch MT-32 romset.
  -s/--soundfont [NUMBER]: Set FluidSynth SoundFont.
  --mt32-reset: Send an MT-32 reset SysEx message.
  --gm-reset: Send a GM reset SysEx message.
  --gs-reset: Send a GS reset SysEx message.
  -t/--mt32-txt "Some text": Send an MT-32 text display SysEx.
  -T/--sc55-txt "Some text": Send an SC-55 text display SysEx.
  -P/--sc55-bmp FILE.BMP: Display a 16x16 1bpp BMP on the screen. (SC-55 SysEx)
  -N/--negative: Reverse image color. Use with '-P/--sc55-bmp'.
  -M/--midi "C0 01 C0 DE": Send a list of custom MIDI bytes.

I have released it with source code at https://github.com/gmcn42/mt32-pi-control. For binaries, just grab the tagged Pre-release (Yes, I consider this to be Beta software atm:wink:)

The MPU401 code is originally from the DOSMID project with some modifications. Like DOSMID the program is compiled with Open Watcom 1.9 for 8086 targets, so this should work even on PC-XTs and compatibles as long as some MPU401-compatible hardware is present. More info about building from source is on the github page.

@dwhinham: I also included an SC-55 screen text SysEx. Did you implement that in mt32-pi? If yes, I did something wrong there bc it doesn't work 🙂

Pix

[dwhinham]

This is excellent, thankyou for sharing! I am sure a lot of people will find this useful! 😃

I do have code that recognises an SC-55 text message, but I haven't implemented that just yet because I need to be able to scroll longer messages (the SC-55 text can go up to 32 chars IIRC). I'll get round to it eventually 😃

The MiSTer project lead wrote a similar tool here for users of AO486 (https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer/blob/master/sw/mpuctl/MPUCTL.C) although it's quite minimal and your tool has some nice extra features.

Cheers!

---

Edit: I've added a new page to the wiki and moved information about SysEx utilities there. I've added mt32-pi-control to a list of utilities intended for use with mt32-pi: https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/wiki/System-Exclusive-utilities

[flynnsbit]

@gmcn42 I maintain a pack of DOS games on the MiSTer FPGA PC core. Do you mind if I include MT32-PI.EXE in my github repo for our update script?

[gmcn42]

Hi @flynnsbit,
it's BSD-licensed, so generally: Go ahead!

Fine print: To be totally BSD-license conforming I think you'd need to include a short README-style note somewhere containing the text from LICENSE (also bc of the parts of code that weren't written by me) and optionally a link back to the repo.

This would also help if people have any issues to report. Hope that isn't too much of a hassle.

EDIT: In case you're bound by 8.3-filenames, just call it MT32-PI.TXT and put it wherever MT32-PI.EXE is.

Side Note: Originally I wanted to call the executable mt32-pi-ctl.exe but then I remembered about DOS short filenames. 🙄

[gmcn42]

...I just added a text file that's ready-to-use: https://github.com/gmcn42/mt32-pi-control/blob/main/dos_bin/MT32-PI.TXT

Your ao486 pack seems pretty cool!
I also didn't realize development of ao486 stuff was so active. When I last came across it performance was way below a 486DX33, also I think SB16 wasn't implemented yet. Only thing I'd be missing a bit now is Gravis Ultrasound, mostly for Epic games.

[flynnsbit]

Hi @flynnsbit,
it's BSD-licensed, so generally: Go ahead!

Fine print: To be totally BSD-license conforming I think you'd need to include a short README-style note somewhere containing the text from LICENSE (also bc of the parts of code that weren't written by me) and optionally a link back to the repo.

This would also help if people have any issues to report. Hope that isn't too much of a hassle.

EDIT: In case you're bound by 8.3-filenames, just call it MT32-PI.TXT and put it wherever MT32-PI.EXE is.

Side Note: Originally I wanted to call the executable mt32-pi-ctl.exe but then I remembered about DOS short filenames. 🙄

Not at all a problem, happy to do all of that. Yes, bound by 8.3 so in the pack it will be going into E:\UTILS. I was going to have the script pull directly from your releases but wanted to make sure that I always had a version that was verified and works in case of changes, repo's disappearing, etc. Thanks again for this. This stops me from having to run DUMP and SYSEX's for 140 games in the pack! You solution is much cleaner.

[flynnsbit]

...I just added a text file that's ready-to-use: https://github.com/gmcn42/mt32-pi-control/blob/main/dos_bin/MT32-PI.TXT

Your ao486 pack seems pretty cool!
I also didn't realize development of ao486 stuff was so active. When I last came across it performance was way below a 486DX33, also I think SB16 wasn't implemented yet. Only thing I'd be missing a bit now is Gravis Ultrasound, mostly for Epic games.

Yeah, it is in a really really good state. I couldn't have made it this far without all those changes over the summer. Auto CD mounting, SB16, speed, good CRT/VGA/HDMI control, it's all there. OH and of course, full MT32-PI integration with the core.

[gmcn42]

Amiga version!

AmigaOS system libraries are reasonably easy if you stick with 2.x+ or even 3.x+ APIs, the challenge is when you want to maintain 1.3 compatibility, as it's much more limited. And you also have some quirks such as the dos.library being mostly a BCPL interface, so pointer/string types need special handling when using dos.library functions, but apart from that it's not so bad. Let me know if anything doesn't make sense, I've got a bit of AmigaOS experience behind me.

Thanks @dwhinham , your code was just the thing I needed! I got it working. 🙂

You can find a binary in the amiga-experimental branch: https://github.com/gmcn42/mt32-pi-control/tree/amiga-experimental/amiga_bin
I'll merge everything once I have updated the documentation and double-checked that the DOS version is still fine.

EDIT: All done: https://github.com/gmcn42/mt32-pi-control/releases/tag/v0.9-beta2

The frontend code is completely shared. A new platform just needs to implement the functions in common_src/midi_dev.h and provide a build script. Through midi_dev.h a backend may also add CLI options to the frontend.

Amiga-specific options:

-S: Use direct serial port access instead of camd.library 
-l: The camd output location to connect to (Default: out.0)

I made the serial port vs camd thing an explicit user choice to not make any assumptions of people's setups.

[dwhinham]

Excellent - I'm glad the Amiga code was useful, thanks for this!

I've updated the wiki page to reflect that it supports Amiga now. 🙂

[gmcn42]

New version and new platforms (Atari ST, Linux, Windows)!

Maybe I went a little overboard but it can send SYX files now, too. And as an additional gimmick it can display 8 barely readable 4x8 bitmap characters in SoundFont mode by misusing the 16x16 graphics feature (see image). I don't know why I felt I needed to do this but here we are. 🤷‍♂️

More excitingly though: I ported it to Atari ST, as well as modern Linux and Windows. :)

https://github.com/gmcn42/mt32-pi-control/releases/tag/v1.0.0

The pixel font is miniwi by Josuah Demangeon

[dwhinham]

Brilliant! Will tweet this out, I'm sure this'll make some Atari ST/MiSTer ST core fans very happy!

Thanks for this as always 🙂