[Scummvm-devel] MT-32 emulation

[Jamieson Christian]

Eugene Sandulenko wrote:

> I have working (with minor bugs) MT-32 emulator for ScummVM. It is
> based on Linux ALSA driver. The reason I put some efforts into it
> (really it was not difficult, as it has interface very similiar to our
> midi backend) is that driver exists only for Windows and Linux, and
> even modified version of dosbox is MSVC-only.

What's this about ALSA? Does your version work ONLY with Linux? An MT-32
emulator needs to be structured in the same manner as MidiDriver_ADLIB, its
final output being a waveform generated on a premix_proc call. (Do we still
use that, actually? That premix idea has always annoyed me.) Such a driver
works on any platform that supports the Sound Manager.

> Yes, like we now are dependent on FM-TOWNS font rom and all bunch of
> those original game datafiles. It will not work without the ROM.

We do not, to my knowledge, use any sort of ROM for FM-TOWNS.

Unless Roland has capitulated recently, the copyright on the ROM for MT-32
is still being defended by Roland. We cannot distribute it with ScummVM.
The end user would be required to supply the ROM file themselves, and an
MT-32 emulator driver for ScummVM would have to account for the presence or
absence of the ROM file to determine whether it can initialize. (And where
would this file be located? The main program directory? The "." directory?
Are they always the same?)

We would, of course, be supporting the use of a ROM file in good faith that
the user owns an MT-32 and thus has a license to the ROM. We would not, of
course, want to support the proliferation of an illegally obtained ROM.

Cheers,
Jamieson Christian
SF.net: Jamieson630