Re: [B2-devel] Midi support in Basilisk (by hook or by crook)

[Ricky Z. <zha...@gm...>]

I’m not clear what is the in and out of your application running inside BII. What’s the connection between virtual tty in host OS Linux and your application in guest OS?

A side topic — Basilisk II can build with SDL V1. We can enable playing midi by SDL mixer — https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/docs/index.html <https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/docs/index.html>.

Don’t count on anyone implement this feature for you. You’d better get your hand dirty.

thanks,
Ricky

> On Jul 2, 2018, at 2:19 AM, Brent Busby <br...@ke...> wrote:
> 
> Short version:
> I have been trying to run Sound Process Visual Editor in emulation.  It
> is a unique program that runs only on classic MacOS, and when m68k Macs
> are no longer physically supportable, there will be no program that can
> do what it does.
> 
> Long version:
> It's truly amazing, the trip I've been on trying to do this.
> 
> Details:
> This application controls the voice engine of an Ensoniq Mirage sampler,
> to assist in building patches.  There are a number of reasons why you'd
> want to do this:
> 
> More modern samplers do not have analog filters.  The Mirage had Curtis
> chips.  The OS that Ensoniq shipped with the Mirage (which is called
> MASOS, and which does have a lot of software support on various OS's) is
> not really optimized for synthesis though; it's optimized to use the
> sampler as a sampler.  (The difference may be more information than
> should really be in this email.)  So you only have decent software
> support for the Mirage if you're running an OS on it that's not much
> good for synthesis.
> 
> SoundProcess is a third party (non-Ensoniq) OS that the Mirage can boot
> from which provides an entirely different voice architecture than what
> it normally supports.  It is optimized for people who want to use the
> Mirage for synthesis instead of traditional sampling.
> 
> There is only one program on the computer side that allows you to edit
> sounds on a Mirage sampler running SoundProcess (instead of the
> manufacturer provided MASOS OS), and it is a third-party app called
> Sound Process Visual Editor.  It is a 68k Mac application made in the
> 90's by an individual who has disappeared.
> 
> Basilisk:
> From what I've been able to see in the forums, Midi support in Basilisk
> was abandoned because it would be too complex to guarantee stable timing
> for sequencer playback.
> 
> However, for programs like this, which don't aim to play music but only
> send raw data to a device, stable timing isn't really even important.
> As long as the bytes get in and out, you can still edit patches.  For
> that matter, the behavior of Basilisk that I've seen running on my Linux
> machine with a 4-core 3.2GHz AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU is extremely
> glitch free and responsive, far faster than any real Mac Quadra I've
> ever been on.  I really doubt the timing would be all that terrible even
> if there were no realtime or guarantees provided.  (I've seen hardware
> sequencers that didn't even have any other jobs besides being sequencers
> that were truly awful in that respect, just for comparison.)
> 
> Environment:
> I have setup a Linux kernel module called tty0tty on my machine.  It's
> very useful, as it provides four pairs of virtual serial ports connected
> by virtual nullmodems.  You get /dev/tnt0 through /dev/tnt7, with each
> odd numbered device node connected bidirectionally to its even numbered
> next device (0<=>1, 2<=>3, 4<=>5, 6<=>7).  This allows you to connect
> any program that expects a serial port to any other program that expects
> a serial port, without getting any real serial ports involved.  One
> interesting benefit of this that I've observed has been that when you
> use these virtual ports, it seems you can set any baud rate you want on
> either side, and they don't seem to have to match.  The data will simply
> come across regardless, even if one side is 2400 baud and the other is
> 115200, which makes sense considering there really is no actual medium.
> 
> It has been very frustrating though seeing that I can do this, and have
> Hayes modem commands come through the virtual nullmodem, but even the
> simplest Midi strings produce "unimplemented control code" errors on
> stderr, and not a single byte makes it through the nullmodem.
> 
> Prognosis:
> All I really need it to do is pass bytes.  It doesn't have to do it
> well, just let them through.
> 
> Is there any hope that in the future Basilisk will get any kind of Midi
> support, even for applications like this where timing isn't important?
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