Midiman Portman via Toshiba Libretto 110CT parallel port?

[fatal3rror]

I've been trying to get an old Midiman Portman 2x4 midi interface working with my Toshiba Libretto 110CT laptop. My end goal is to control my laptop's OPL3 soundchip in Adlibtracker II (or other comparable tool to control FM synthesis) via midi input from a keyboard/DAW.

The current configuration looks like this:
Keyboard/DAW => MIDI cable => Portman 2x4 => parallel port of Libretto => Adlibtracker II

Drivers were acquired here:

Wayback Machine

I installed the device's drivers, however, every time that I boot up Windows 98 I am met with the messages "Output Hardware not Detected" followed by "Input Hardware not Detected".

The manual suggests the following two solutions:

Solution 1: These messages always pop up when you go into Windows with the PORTMAN 2x4 disconnected. If, for instance, you only have one parallel port on your computer, but need to use a printer or other device on that port, there is a check-box in the PORTMAN 2x4 Driver set-up that will allow you to disable this message upon rebooting.

Solution 2: It is most likely that you do not have a PORTMAN 2x4 MIDI Driver for Windows installed in your system, or that your driver is not set up correctly for your parallel port. Please see Windows Driver Installation and "About Your PC Port Address" (page 13) for more instructions.

Regarding solution 1, I think that the device is not being recognized. The diagnostic tool included on the drive disk, P2x4diag.exe, reports "Internal Hardware Test: FAIL - Interface Not Found".

I believe this may be due to issues around driver setup as suggested by solution 2.

I followed the advice presented by solution 2 and looked up the "About your PC Port Address" section as suggested. It instructs to use the a tool called LPT.exe on the driver disk to identify the parallel port related address information.

The output of the tool is as follows:

There is 1 parrallel port installed in your system:

LPT at I/O base address 378h

I'm a bit at a loss now and feel like I've hit a dead end. The above output confirms that my original configuration was correct. This is also reflected in the menu of the aforementioned diagnostic tool which reflected a configuration state expecting an I/O address of 378h.

I read somewhere online that I might need to enable EPP mode for the parallel port, however, I don't see this available in the laptop's bios. The available options are: ECP and Std. Bi-Direct.

Has anyone set up this or a similar MIDI interface before with the Libretto? Any guidance would be much appreciated!

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I'm not familiar with tracker software, but does Adlibtracker II even support external MIDI devices? From the FAQ, it doesn't look like it does.

The other problem is the non-standard method you're using to attach your keyboard. Most things that work with the Adlib expect it on its standard 388h port, not 378h, the parallel port. In order for software to know about that, it either has to explicitly support MIDI devices being on the parallel port, or you have to use a TSR to remap calls to 388h to the parallel port at 378h. There is such a driver available for the OPLxLPT, but it only works in realmode, not protected mode afaik. The driver that comes with the Portman 2x4 may do that for you, but I'm not familiar with it enough to know if it does or not.

What mode the parallel port is in is also important. I would assume that it needs EPP (Bi Directional) or ECP, since two way communication is likely required to the MIDI device.

I would recommend trying the Portman 2x4 on another computer and see if you get different results. The Libretto could have some issue with the parallel port that prevents your setup from working, but I have a feeling it may be due to the wonky setup you're using.

 

[fatal3rror]

The specific software is not important. I only picked Adlibtracker II because there is an old version which DOES have MIDI support.

Do you have a suggestion for some other software which would allow me to control the OPL3 via MIDI?

All I care about is note-on events and being able to create my own FM instruments. If that is achievable via this MIDI device then I would consider this project a success.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

The software you listed supports MIDI, but with your janky setup, I don't think you'll ever be able to control the OPL3 with an external MIDI device.

You'd need a regular desktop PC with a discrete OPL3 card that had a physical MIDI port on it, or the game port with a MIDI breakout adapter.

 

[fatal3rror]

After reading a bit more, my gut feeling is now that this parallel port MIDI interface isn't going to work with this old laptop since the BIOS lacks support for EPP mode.

GiGaBiTe, you're right that Adlibtracker is expecting an MPU-401 device and unless I solder breakouts to the OPL3 directly then I'm probably not going to be using this software to achieve my goals. I'd rather not modify this computer so I'll be looking for another solution. I'm sure there has to be a solution that doesn't require using a desktop PC

Does anyone know of some other way of controlling the Libretto's OPL3 via MIDI-input? I was thinking about getting a USB PCMCIA card and trying to get that to work with a USB-based MIDI interface like the MIDISport Uno which seems to have DOS and Windows 95/98 drivers.

Even if I had a functioning MIDI interface, I would still need to find software that allows for FM synthesis to be controlled by input from this MIDI device. Does anyone know of such software? I'm only familiar with the aforementioned AdlibTracker, however, it seems like it won't be usable for this project.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Without writing your own software and drivers, assuming you can find a PC that works with that parallel port MIDI thing, I don't think you'll be able to do what you want.

Weird janky adapters and configurations tend to not get much support from mainstream software.

I did a bit more digging and found this thing: https://www.tindie.com/products/che...o&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=project_buynow

It's expensive, but seems to maybe do what you want? You can control the OPL2/3 with an external MIDI device and do a whole lot of customization with it.

 

[fatal3rror]

If it comes down to writing my own software then so be it. A faster route I guess would just be to modify the laptop and solder MIDI breakouts directly to the OPL3 chip.

I see the specific adapter that I'm attempting to use mentioned a lot in an old Chiptune forum but, unfortunately I'm unable to register for an account there to ask for help. The device manual mentions support in Cakewalk and Cubase so I'd be surprised if there wasn't SOMETHING out there that would support this device or a USB device (or even serial like the serial Portman) as mentioned before.

GiGaBiTe, the purpose of this project is to specifically use a vintage laptop's OPL3 chip - preferably the Libretto. The linked product is very cool but won't satisfy those requirements.

Even just controlling the Microsoft Wavetable synth would be acceptable honestly - so perhaps an old DAW? Love those cheesy sounds XD

 

[GiGaBiTe]

If it comes down to writing my own software then so be it. A faster route I guess would just be to modify the laptop and solder MIDI breakouts directly to the OPL3 chip.

That's... not how the OPL2/3 works. There are no MIDI pins on the chip, the MIDI interface is provided external MCU/CPU that runs a driver/software control to the OPLx chip. You aren't going to be able to just bodge on wires and have a MIDI interface.

Devices that use the OPLx sound chips usually had a dedicated CPU to control the chip, most commonly a Z80. Because driving the chip to produce more than just beeps and boops required considerable processing power. Even when used in a PC, it requires considerable processing power that degrades system performance. It's why games in the DOS era would usually give you an option to lower the number of sound channels, playback rate, bit rate, etc. if you had a slower machine. It wasn't until the Pentium era that CPUs got fast enough to not have to worry about speed in FM synthesis. PCM was an entirely different matter, and CPUs still needed to be much faster for that.

GiGaBiTe, the purpose of this project is to specifically use a vintage laptop's OPL3 chip - preferably the Libretto. The linked product is very cool but won't satisfy those requirements.

The project allows you to control an OPL2/3 chip via MIDI port, which is what I thought you wanted to do. It gives you far more control over the OPLx than the janky PC setup does.

 

[retroelectronix]

How deep do you want to go with the sound design? Because there's plenty of Windows tools that will let you use the OPL3 as a sound source, but you're going to be stuck with the General MIDI set of sounds or modify basic parameters.
The amount of control you can get on Adlib Tracker II will not be possible. As GiGaBiTe said, you need something that interfaces between the MIDI and the chip. adlib Tracker does but it won't work with that device, you need to use the soundcard gameport MIDI thingy.

A Libretto 110 is a bit slow, but if you have a beefier computer with an OPL3, you could also use Adlib Tracker II within DosBOX and interface with MIDI on the Windows host. Latency is going to be awful anyway.

 

[fatal3rror]

How deep do you want to go with the sound design? Because there's plenty of Windows tools that will let you use the OPL3 as a sound source, but you're going to be stuck with the General MIDI set of sounds or modify basic parameters.
The amount of control you can get on Adlib Tracker II will not be possible. As GiGaBiTe said, you need something that interfaces between the MIDI and the chip. adlib Tracker does but it won't work with that device, you need to use the soundcard gameport MIDI thingy.

A Libretto 110 is a bit slow, but if you have a beefier computer with an OPL3, you could also use Adlib Tracker II within DosBOX and interface with MIDI on the Windows host. Latency is going to be awful anyway.

That makes a lot of sense!

I recently got a USB Midi device working in Windows 98 on the Libretto and would love to use the general MIDI set of sounds with basic parameters in lieu of the greater control that Adlib Tracker II gives.

I'll start a new thread with the questions that have now arrisen out of that work since they are no longer relevant to this thread!