some comments re: dosemu 1.1.99 (fwd)

some comments re: dosemu 1.1.99 (fwd)

[Bart Oldeman]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 10:36:22 -0400
From: Dave Phillips <dlphilp@bright.net>
To: bartoldeman@users.sourceforge.net
Subject: some comments re: dosemu 1.1.99

Hi Bart:

   I'm currently rewriting my book (Book Of Linux Music & Sound) and have just finished the Emulators chapter. I updated to the 1.2 release
candidate and wanted to say a few words to you about it.

   First, congratulations to the entire team a job very well done. A number of minor irritations have been removed (shift-tab works in Sequencer
Plus!) and overall the system is easier to use and configure (I'm using the binary distro, btw).

   I was especially impressed when I fired up two long-standing "no joy" apps under dosemu. M/pc is a Voyetra product from the late 80s/early
90s that runs under an included runtime version of Windows 2.0 (!). Back in the days of dosemu 0.66 or so I was able to run it under the
emulation, but later versions didn't like it at all. 1.1.99 now gets to the Win 2.0 splash screen but hangs after that; still, that's further
than I've got for quite some time.

   The other app in question is Sound Globs, an excellent algorithmic MIDI composition program. I never got very far with SG under dosemu, the
splash screen would appear then the app would just hang. Curiously, another app (Drummer) from the same company works beautifully under dosemu.
However, I'm now able to open and run the program, but something happens when it opens that kills its MIDI activity. The program appears to be
working, it just doesn't send any MIDI data. Upon opening it sends a big MIDI reset to my synths (including a big chord with no apparent
note-off), then I get no joy. :(  I'm still working with it though, trying to at least create some MIDI files for later use.

   Anyway, I'd like to send these apps to someone on the dosemu team for possible testing at your level. I sent M/pc to Stas quite some time
ago, he said it worked for him (after hanging on to that Win 2.0 screen for a long time) but gave no other details. I'm not sure what I might
attack in the dosemu configuration, so any and all advice will be vastly appreciated.

   I understand you're probably quite busy, so don't bother with a response if you've no time. But if possible please pass this message on to
anyone you think could help me here. TIA!

Best regards,

Dave Phillips

Re: some comments re: dosemu 1.1.99 (fwd)

[Clarence Dang]

Hi,

> The other app in question is Sound Globs, an excellent algorithmic MIDI
> composition program. 
> (...)
> I'm now able to open and run the program, but something happens when it
> opens that kills its MIDI activity. The program appears to be working, it
> just doesn't send any MIDI data. Upon opening it sends a big MIDI reset to
> my synths (including a big chord with no apparent note-off), then I get no
> joy. :(  I'm still working with it though, trying to at least create some
> MIDI files for later use.
>
Are you using midid?  If so, is ~/.dosemu/run/dosemu-midi a pipe?  If it's 
only a file, MIDI events will just accumulate in there; that might explain 
why you get a single note at startup but no MIDI after that.

Clarence

ye olde vga fonts problem redux

[Dave Phillips]

Greetings:

  Voodoo magic strikes!

  Yesterday I was happily running dosemu 1.1.99, everything looked and 
ran great. But this morning when I fired it up I received this popular 
error :

[dlphilp@localhost dosemu]$ ./xdosemu

   You do not have the DOSEMU vga font installed and are running
   remote X. You need to install the vga font on your _local_ Xserver.
   Look at the readme for details. For now we start with an fixed font,
   which does not display all national characters correctly.
   ... be warned

ERROR: X: Unable to open font "vga"ERROR: , trying "vga"...
ERROR: X: Unable to open font "vga"ERROR: , trying "9x15"...


  Umm... Absolutely *nothing* was touched from the time I went to bed 
last night until I got up this morning. I did not receive this error 
before today. I'm *not* running X remotely, I'm running it as normal 
user as usual, just like it was run yesterday with no problems. Can 
someone please tell me how to permanently fix this problem ?

  I'm using the binary distribution of 1.1.99, running it from the 
installation directory at /home/dlphilp/mydos/dosemu. This worked 
wonderfully before this morning. The /usr/local/share/dosemu/Xfonts 
directory doesn't exist so the fix at 
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-msdos@vger.kernel.org/msg02751.html 
does not work. Very frustrated here, can someone help ? TIA!

Best,

Dave Phillips

Re: ye olde vga fonts problem redux

[Ralph Alvy]

Dave Phillips wrote:

> Greetings:
> 
>   Voodoo magic strikes!
> 
>   Yesterday I was happily running dosemu 1.1.99, everything looked and
> ran great. But this morning when I fired it up I received this popular
> error :
> 
> [dlphilp@localhost dosemu]$ ./xdosemu
> 
>    You do not have the DOSEMU vga font installed and are running
>    remote X. You need to install the vga font on your _local_ Xserver.
>    Look at the readme for details. For now we start with an fixed font,
>    which does not display all national characters correctly.
>    ... be warned
> 
> ERROR: X: Unable to open font "vga"ERROR: , trying "vga"...
> ERROR: X: Unable to open font "vga"ERROR: , trying "9x15"...
> 
> 
>   Umm... Absolutely *nothing* was touched from the time I went to bed
> last night until I got up this morning. I did not receive this error
> before today. I'm *not* running X remotely, I'm running it as normal
> user as usual, just like it was run yesterday with no problems. Can
> someone please tell me how to permanently fix this problem ?
> 
>   I'm using the binary distribution of 1.1.99, running it from the
> installation directory at /home/dlphilp/mydos/dosemu. This worked
> wonderfully before this morning. The /usr/local/share/dosemu/Xfonts
> directory doesn't exist so the fix at
> http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-msdos@vger.kernel.org/msg02751.html
> does not work. Very frustrated here, can someone help ? TIA!

Have you tried runing

        xset fp default

and then loading xdosemu after that?

Re: some comments re: dosemu 1.1.99 (fwd)

[Dave Phillips]

Clarence Dang wrote:

[re: Sound Globs opening noise]

>>I'm now able to open and run the program, but something happens when it
>>opens that kills its MIDI activity. The program appears to be working, it
>>just doesn't send any MIDI data. Upon opening it sends a big MIDI reset to
>>my synths (including a big chord with no apparent note-off), then I get no
>>joy. :(  I'm still working with it though, trying to at least create some
>>MIDI files for later use.
>>
>>    
>>
>Are you using midid?  If so, is ~/.dosemu/run/dosemu-midi a pipe?  If it's 
>only a file, MIDI events will just accumulate in there; that might explain 
>why you get a single note at startup but no MIDI after that.
>
Hi Clarence:

  Actually it's a bunch of notes sounding at once (i.e. a chord). I 
remember beta testing a version of Sequencer Plus that did exactly the 
same thing, and the programmers at Voyetra fixed it. They told me that 
the sequencer did a complete MIDI reset upon opening, which makes sense, 
but they also realized it was an error to send a bunch of MIDI note-on 
messages. Btw, when I run Sound Globs on a dedicated DOS machine this 
effect does not occur.

  No, I'm not using midid. ~/.dosemu/run/dosemu-midi is linked to 
/dev/snd/midiC1D0, ALSA's virtual MIDI card. In the past I've found that 
method to be much les latency-prone than midid, though I recall Stas 
mentioning that the daemon had been much improved lately. I might try it 
again someday, but truthfully the link works so well I'm not inclined to 
change it.

  Thanks for the suggestion, I appreciate any & all input on this matter.

Best regards,

Dave Phillips