[Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[use.reply-to.address]

Hi,

I'd like to know if joystick support is being considered for inclusion into
qemu someday ?

in the hopes to help this going forward I have done some quick research on
joystick interface hardware and software.

here are the links I found

this article alone should contain all the information needed to create a
joystick device in the virtual machine

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joystick/pc_joystick.html

it containst electric description of the gameport , how the port actually
works , how to read from it with some example code and many useful links to
other good articles

for the host side of business , in the case of linux the js* interface takes
care of everything and is surprisingly easy to use (I made a program fully
joystick aware with the "gambas" language in less than a day)

the linux joystick interface is already on your computer at

/usr/src/linux/Documentation/input/joystick.txt
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/input/joystick-api.txt

there is currently limited force feedback support under linux unfortunately

under windows the directx directinput interface can be used , there are
links to article on directinput in the epanorama document and many more can
be found using google

there is also another way to read the joystick that doesn't require directx
but I can't find anything at this time , it is probably in msdn and part of
the base win32 api (probably didn't change since windows95)

I can help with explaining how to read the /dev/js* interface since I just
made a program using it , however I suck at C so I can't help actually
implementing it , but if anyone wants to give this a try, I would gladly
help in any way I can (if only via beta testing , I have a few joysticks and
gamepads and lots of old dos games that use the joystick)

I also found the following extra documentation

a dos game programming tutorial for beginner with a passage on joysticks
http://www3.telus.net/alexander_russell/course/chapter_4.htm

this post on the expert-exchange forum has the name of the api calls for the
non-directx joystick interface
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Game_Development/Game_UI/Q_21189159.html

msdn doc about the win32-api joystick interface , that should be all that's
needed
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/multimed/htm/_win32_multimedia_input.asp

now that this is done , there is another piece of hardware that I would like
to see emulated

the pc speaker

both windows and linux provide easy access to the pc speaker , but since
sound card output is already done in qemu , it might be easier to modulate
the sound and output it as wav via the sound card , authencity is a great
thing but accurately reproducing the sound of a pc speaker isn't as much of
a big deal as the Commodore SID chips ;) , an approximation of it out the
sound card will be just fine

so here's the meat I found on the subject

http://delphi.about.com/cs/adptips2003/a/bltip0303_3.htm
this (I guess) some delphi code to get sound out the pc speaker , it looks
like there a bunch of inline asm , and hardware addresses so I guess it's
usable

http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven/www/area25.htm
http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven2/www/area28.htm
these two pages had some links to a lot of dos sound code
some of it could probably be used to improve the sb16-compatible emulated
card (which works fine except for missing pnp and not understanding some
operations dos games used to use to auto-detect the card)
the code contained there is supposed to have moved to
http://www.programmersheaven.com/

http://fly.cc.fer.hr/GDM/articles/sndmus/speaker1.html
http://fly.srk.fer.hr/GDM/articles/sndmus/speaker2.html
this 2 part article on the pc speakers looks like a very complete
description of the pc speakers , how to use it , how it works etc..
this might be all that's needed

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/lpg/node83.html
a quick passage about the pc speaker usage under linux
I'm sure there a lot more somewhere in the linux kernel source , I just
can't find it at this time

/usr/src/linux/drivers/input/misc/pcspkr.c
there's a little bit more information here

http://www.linuxlots.com/~dunne/lj.pc_speaker.html
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1362
both the same article on the pc-speaker


http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue69/mathew.html
Creating a Kernel Driver for the PC Speaker

after writing this post I continued to dig in programmersheaven.com
and I found all the following files I think could be relevant
some are about the pc speakers and a lot of them are about the sounblaster ,
GUS and adlib cards on both digital audio and midi synthetised audio

some of these have C and pascal code that could greatly help supporting more
sb16 auto-detection/autoconfiguration subroutines

I took all these files and put them in a tar on my website at

http://www.domn.net/old-sound-stuff.tar.gz

I renamed each file to something more descriptive than the original 8.3 char
name

AdLib and soundblaster FM Music toolkit with C source.zip
Brief Overview of Proposed General MIDI Level 1 Spec.zip
CZ 1000 101 MIDI implementation.zip
CZ-102 MIDI data and implementation chart.zip
Casio CZ MIDI Guide to Everything you Never Wanted to Know about MIDI 
but are going to Find Out Anyway.zip
Cpp sources for programming with the soundblaster16.zip
Description of MIDI Status Bytes.zip
Description of MIDI notes.zip
Description of the AdLib and Soundblaster FM music chips.txt
Dictionary of Midi Computer terms.zip
Example PASCAL code for SB compatible digital sound routines.txt
Example PASCAL code for using standard AdLib routines.txt
FMSOUND is a library for generating tones with the OPL2 FM chip.zip
GUS autodetection code in asm.zip
GUSDUMP dumps the entire contents of your GUS DRAM to a file and also 
plays the contents of the GUS DRAM back out through the GUS.zip
GUSREV Release 0.2 The GUS revision detector.zip
Gravis Ultrasound JP5 and JP7 mods and specs.zip
Gravis Ultrasound Tech Specs The Unofficial Doc.zip
Gravis Ultrasound audio synthesis.zip
Gravis Ultrasound programming files.zip
Gus programmers digest v16.zip
GusLib is a public domain programming library for the Gravis UltraSound 
sound card.zip
Gusinfo is ment to be used by developers using the GUS. It shows 
information about the card while in use.zip
How to make your GUS sound like it cost more than it did.zip
MIDI 1.0 Specification.zip
MIDI CZ programming tips.zip
MIDI Channel mode messages.zip
MIDI Channel voice messages.zip
MIDI System messages.zip
MIDI Time Code and Cueing Detailed Specification.zip
Midi status & data bytes in hex and dec.zip
PC Cacophony pc speaker C music library.zip
PC MIDI basics no1 what is MIDI.zip
PC MIDI basics no2 MIDI interfaces.zip
PC MIDI basics no3 introduction to sequencers and notators.zip
Programming Information v0.90.txt
Programming Information v0.90.zip
Programming the SoundBlaster 16 DSP.txt
Realtime Pitchshifting on the GUS and GUSMAX.zip
SB and GUS coexistence Frequently Asked Questions.zip
SMIX is a turbo pascal lib that can do software downmixing and some 
auto-configuration of the dma.zip
Sound master is a turbo pascal sound lib for use in games.zip
SoundBlaster DSP manuals and samples v1.0.zip
SoundFX A Tutorial Introduction to Creating Sounds on the PC.zip
SoundFX II A Step-By-Step Tutorial in Cpp.zip
Soundblaster digest number 16.txt
The USENET MIDI Primer.zip
The UltraSound Source no1 Magazine for GUSers.zip
The Un-official Sound Blaster AWE32 Programming Guide.txt
The Un-official Sound Blaster AWE32 Programming Guide.zip
The official Gravis Ultrasound Programmers Encyclopedia.zip
UltraSound Memory Test V1.01 Gusmem.zip
Varmint's Audio Tools SB16 DSP programming kit.zip
What is MIDI.zip
another midi interface for the soundblaster gameport.txt
description of a gameport to midi hardware interface.txt
gossip about the upcoming soundblaster pro v2.txt
image that came with the 2nd midi-gameport interface.pcx
image that came with the 2nd midi-gameport interface2.pcx
troubleshooting with the Soundblaster and Gravis UltraSound on the same 
board.txt

bye
Jean-Francois Perreault
Joysti

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[Andrew Francis]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2005 at 03:03:03AM -0500, use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'd like to know if joystick support is being considered for inclusion into
> qemu someday ?
*snip*
> for the host side of business , in the case of linux the js* interface takes
> care of everything and is surprisingly easy to use (I made a program fully
> joystick aware with the "gambas" language in less than a day)

The SDL library (already used by qemu for keyboard/mouse/display) has
joystick support. I had a go at implementing joystick support a while
back, but it doesn't work yet - my test case, TIE Fighter on MS-DOS,
responded initially but would stop responding to movement/buttons
halfway through the calibration.

I was actually planning to dust it off this coming weekend and try to
get it working. If anyone else is really eager to have a go before then,
let me know and I'll throw a patch together.

-- 
Andrew Francis
Perth, Australia
http://www.sullust.net/

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[malc]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:

<snip>
> http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven/www/area25.htm
> http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven2/www/area28.htm
> these two pages had some links to a lot of dos sound code
> some of it could probably be used to improve the sb16-compatible emulated
> card (which works fine except for missing pnp and not understanding some
> operations dos games used to use to auto-detect the card)
> the code contained there is supposed to have moved to
> http://www.programmersheaven.com/

What games exactly?

-- 
mailto:malc@pulsesoft.com

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[Antony T Curtis]

On Mon, 2005-03-21 at 03:03 -0500, use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'd like to know if joystick support is being considered for inclusion into
> qemu someday ?
> 
> in the hopes to help this going forward I have done some quick research on
> joystick interface hardware and software.
> 
> here are the links I found
> 
> this article alone should contain all the information needed to create a
> joystick device in the virtual machine
> 
> http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joystick/pc_joystick.html

I haven't read the above link yet but I have used PCs since the XT and I
have this to say...

What on earth was IBM thinking when they used a 556 as a poor analogue
to digital converter?!?

IIRC, the early joystick cards comprised solely of 2 74LS series logic
chips and a 556 (dual 555) chip.

It was horrible. 'Nuff said.

<snip>

-- 
Antony T Curtis, BSc.                   UNIX, Linux, *BSD, Networking
antony.t.curtis@ntlworld.com            C++, J2EE, Perl, MySQL, Apache
                                        IT Consultancy.

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[Brad Campbell]

Antony T Curtis wrote:
> 
> What on earth was IBM thinking when they used a 556 as a poor analogue
> to digital converter?!?

They probably looked at Woz's circuit from the Apple.

Brad
-- 
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable
for their apparent disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[use.reply-to.address]

malc wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven/www/area25.htm
>> http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven2/www/area28.htm
>> these two pages had some links to a lot of dos sound code
>> some of it could probably be used to improve the sb16-compatible 
>> emulated
>> card (which works fine except for missing pnp and not understanding some
>> operations dos games used to use to auto-detect the card)
>> the code contained there is supposed to have moved to
>> http://www.programmersheaven.com/
>
>
> What games exactly?
>

in windows the sound does work fine
it worked on the first tried after I manually set the irq from 7 to 5 , 
same thing with both windows 98 and windows 2000
I could probably get sound for some of these games running them in 
windows 2000 with VDMsound

so far I have tried

aces of the pacific

when you run the setup you have each choice and the auto-detected ones 
have a check mark next to them
only the pc speaker has one (but there's no sound coming out)

when the setup program launch , qemu complain about the 0xe0,1 not being 
understood yet
(4 times and there are 4 support sound card types
Roland MT-32 MT-100 LAPC-I CM-32L or CM-64
SoundBlaster / AdLib Card (or compatibles)
Tandy 3 voice
IBM PS/1 Audio/Joystick Card)

my guess is that this 0xe0,1 command is pretty important if all these 
card types can be detected and distinguished with it
maybe other commands are run after it but this install program just 
gives up after this first command

this game also uses the joystick
(I have 624k conventional memory so the program run fine and at exactly 
the right speed (as opposed to plain dos on this same machine , too fast))

blake stone (based on wolfenstein 3d, wolf3d has excellent autodetection 
capabilities , this is my experience with it in the past on very varied 
machines)

this game comes with a SETBLAST.EXE program that is used to set the 
BLAST  variable that a lot of games use to set the io/irq/dma
this program also include autodetection but is does not trigger any 
"command not understood" message , also the program claims there is no 
card on 220/5/1

black stone itself has an in-game menu for setting the sound , starting 
the game does not trigger any "command not understood" message , but the 
game
doesn't give any other choice than the pc speaker

Alone in the dark
when launching this game you always start in the configuration menu then 
the game itself
when I try to configure , first it ask for the FM music card typebut all 
the choices are "grayed out"
you press any key and it ask for the sound effect card type and only the 
pc speaker is available
does not trigger "command not understood" message

X-Wing (original version not the CD version)
the installer does not have any restriction on the card type and doesn't 
appear to have card type detection routines
you just choose the card type and launch the game
unfortunately there is no sound , also no "command not understood" message
there is probably some auto-detection routine running at game launch however

I have no mouth and I must scream
I have never played that game , ever
when I start it the windows enlarge too 1280x1024 and fill with some 
garbage , but it's mostly white , in the garbage I can barely make some 
full motion video being repeated a few times
there are no sound nor any "command not understood" message , this game 
is not playable (the only one so far)

that's the games I had in my dos image

I have a lot more of them in my collection , I just need to copy them to 
my harddrive then I can give you a more detailed report

also I suppose there is some special console I could use to monitor the 
auto-detection routines , maybe that could be helpful

if there is any specific test you want me to perform just ask , I'll 
post again later with more reports

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[use.reply-to.address]

Antony T Curtis wrote:

>On Mon, 2005-03-21 at 03:03 -0500, use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I'd like to know if joystick support is being considered for inclusion into
>>qemu someday ?
>>
>>in the hopes to help this going forward I have done some quick research on
>>joystick interface hardware and software.
>>
>>here are the links I found
>>
>>this article alone should contain all the information needed to create a
>>joystick device in the virtual machine
>>
>>http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joystick/pc_joystick.html
>>    
>>
>
>I haven't read the above link yet but I have used PCs since the XT and I
>have this to say...
>
>What on earth was IBM thinking when they used a 556 as a poor analogue
>to digital converter?!?
>
>IIRC, the early joystick cards comprised solely of 2 74LS series logic
>chips and a 556 (dual 555) chip.
>
>It was horrible. 'Nuff said.
>
><snip>
>
>  
>
those chips are dirt cheap and widely available even the early 80s and 
probably a very long time before that
that way they made sure every computer had one , until the late 90s they 
were almost as common as printer and serial ports in domestic computers
it's ugly but it worked surprisingly well , at least for me

but yes , a couple ADCs would have been a lot more useful 
hobby-electronics wise , even better than the serial and parallel port !

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[use.reply-to.address]

Andrew Francis wrote:

>On Mon, Mar 21, 2005 at 03:03:03AM -0500, use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I'd like to know if joystick support is being considered for inclusion into
>>qemu someday ?
>>    
>>
>*snip*
>  
>
>>for the host side of business , in the case of linux the js* interface takes
>>care of everything and is surprisingly easy to use (I made a program fully
>>joystick aware with the "gambas" language in less than a day)
>>    
>>
>
>The SDL library (already used by qemu for keyboard/mouse/display) has
>joystick support. I had a go at implementing joystick support a while
>back, but it doesn't work yet - my test case, TIE Fighter on MS-DOS,
>responded initially but would stop responding to movement/buttons
>halfway through the calibration.
>
>I was actually planning to dust it off this coming weekend and try to
>get it working. If anyone else is really eager to have a go before then,
>let me know and I'll throw a patch together.
>
>  
>
I could give that patch a try if it works against recent cvs , I'm not 
well versed in C so I can't be of much help there , but I sure have a 
lot of games to test it with

Re: [Qemu-devel] Joystick, gameport, midi, PC speaker and better sound cards support

[malc]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:

> malc wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 use.reply-to.address@domn.net wrote:
>> 
>> <snip>
>> 
>>> http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven/www/area25.htm
>>> http://www.synchrondata.com/pheaven2/www/area28.htm
>>> these two pages had some links to a lot of dos sound code
>>> some of it could probably be used to improve the sb16-compatible emulated
>>> card (which works fine except for missing pnp and not understanding some
>>> operations dos games used to use to auto-detect the card)
>>> the code contained there is supposed to have moved to
>>> http://www.programmersheaven.com/
>> 
>> 
>> What games exactly?
>> 
>
> in windows the sound does work fine
> it worked on the first tried after I manually set the irq from 7 to 5 , same 
> thing with both windows 98 and windows 2000
> I could probably get sound for some of these games running them in windows 
> 2000 with VDMsound
>
> so far I have tried
>
> aces of the pacific
>
> when you run the setup you have each choice and the auto-detected ones have a 
> check mark next to them
> only the pc speaker has one (but there's no sound coming out)

Sound works just fine.

>
> when the setup program launch , qemu complain about the 0xe0,1 not being 
> understood yet
> (4 times and there are 4 support sound card types
> Roland MT-32 MT-100 LAPC-I CM-32L or CM-64
> SoundBlaster / AdLib Card (or compatibles)
> Tandy 3 voice
> IBM PS/1 Audio/Joystick Card)
>
> my guess is that this 0xe0,1 command is pretty important if all these card 
> types can be detected and distinguished with it
> maybe other commands are run after it but this install program just gives up 
> after this first command
>
> this game also uses the joystick
> (I have 624k conventional memory so the program run fine and at exactly the 
> right speed (as opposed to plain dos on this same machine , too fast))
>
> blake stone (based on wolfenstein 3d, wolf3d has excellent autodetection 
> capabilities , this is my experience with it in the past on very varied 
> machines)
>
> this game comes with a SETBLAST.EXE program that is used to set the BLAST 
> variable that a lot of games use to set the io/irq/dma
> this program also include autodetection but is does not trigger any "command 
> not understood" message , also the program claims there is no card on 220/5/1
>
> black stone itself has an in-game menu for setting the sound , starting the 
> game does not trigger any "command not understood" message , but the game
> doesn't give any other choice than the pc speaker

I couldn't find this one on abandonware sites.

> Alone in the dark
> when launching this game you always start in the configuration menu then the 
> game itself
> when I try to configure , first it ask for the FM music card typebut all the 
> choices are "grayed out"
> you press any key and it ask for the sound effect card type and only the pc 
> speaker is available
> does not trigger "command not understood" message

Sound selection(and sound as such) works just fine.

>
> X-Wing (original version not the CD version)
> the installer does not have any restriction on the card type and doesn't 
> appear to have card type detection routines
> you just choose the card type and launch the game
> unfortunately there is no sound , also no "command not understood" message
> there is probably some auto-detection routine running at game launch however

Havent found it.

> I have no mouth and I must scream
> I have never played that game , ever
> when I start it the windows enlarge too 1280x1024 and fill with some garbage 
> , but it's mostly white , in the garbage I can barely make some full motion 
> video being repeated a few times
> there are no sound nor any "command not understood" message , this game is 
> not playable (the only one so far)
>
> that's the games I had in my dos image
>
> I have a lot more of them in my collection , I just need to copy them to my 
> harddrive then I can give you a more detailed report
>
> also I suppose there is some special console I could use to monitor the 
> auto-detection routines , maybe that could be helpful
>
> if there is any specific test you want me to perform just ask , I'll post 
> again later with more reports
>

Rules for sound to work in dos:
configure with -enable-adlib (without this FM will not be available)
run with -enable-audio
have SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 T6 in autoexec.bat

-- 
mailto:malc@pulsesoft.com