Ghetto MT32-Pi

[chanunnaki]

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, but seeing as MT32 support is vastly more prevalent on the PC core, I guess it's kind of appropriate.

Disclaimer: I'm a total novice when it comes to MIDI and DOS games.

After a week-long journey, I've finally managed to experience the joys of MT32 audio (spoiler: it's amazing) and I used only what I already had on-hand.

When I heard about MT32-Pi first, I thought I would buy a Pi A+, aluminium case, and a [pre-built] mt32-Pi hat, & a male-to-male USB cable. That would have cost $100+ and probably close to a month of waiting time. Ain't nobody got time for that, so I did my research and realised I already had everything I need to get the setup going.

I was first going to splice a USB3 cable to use the user port -- but really didn't want to butcher a perfectly good cable -- and I had a bunch of jumper cables, so I removed my IO board and wired it all up directly. I just followed the wiring guide at the bottom of the page here:
https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/wik ... connection

Anyway, without further ado, here is the [ghetto] MT32-Pi in all its glory:

photo_2021-03-03 05.32.24.jpeg

It's a Raspberry Pi 3B. I tried powering it directly from the DE10-Nano with stock power supply, but I was getting some distortion with heavier games so I'm powering the Pi separately.

I literally knew nothing about MIDI before I started and I had only ever played DOS games with SoundBlaster audio in the past, so the quality of the music in games with this is far superior to anything I've experienced before and brings new life to games like Sim City 2000, Warcraft 2, Doom and Monkey Island. Long story short, I'm totally sold on this device, and I'm going to get the Pi 3 A+, the case and the hat so I can get the IO board back on to play these on my CRT.

My advice to anyone thinking about doing this... go for it, if you don't have a Pi already, get a 3 A+, some jumper cables and build from there. It's easy and totally worth it!

[Fallon]

I'm staring at p.30 of the DE-10 manual scratching my head.

Any simple guide to where the wires from the PI connect to the DE-10 Nano?

edit: Nevermind, tunnel vision on GPIO ports, thought the arduino connections were on an actual arduino, lol

edit 2: Spectrum Holobyte's Tetris Classic has some sweet music!

[shimian]

Ghetto MT32-ers unite!

IMG_1276.JPG

[RascalUK]

So can this be done easily leaving the IO board on?

[chanunnaki]

So can this be done easily leaving the IO board on?

No, because the IO board will cover up those GPIO pins.

The USER port is bringing those pins out to make accessible. So you can just splice a usb cable with jumper wires to go from the USER Port to the pi. It's equally as easy if you have a soldering iron.

There are of course other methods available of joining wires together as well.

[chanunnaki]

If you plan to use cut a USB cable, make sure it's a USB 3.0 cable cos you need all 9 wires/pins.

[RascalUK]

Yeah cheers, I've just been hunting for one that is!

[Fallon]

Finished my ghetto Mister / Mt-32 PI project:

The Case:

hbCQbsJ.jpg

Inside:

MiSTer-1.JPG

[RascalUK]

Ha cool. I got mine working last night too. Thanks guys. (Have ordered a hat anyway on the back of it!)

[d0pefish]

I think we have a winner here for "First Lego mt32-pi" - love it

[RascalUK]

Lego costs more than the stuff inside it these days!

[chanunnaki]

pfft Lego. This is "ghetto", should have used megabloks.


edit: Just a bit of sarcasm in case of misinterpretation.

[Fallon]

Lego costs more than the stuff inside it these days!

Not when you buy Chinese knockoff bricks

[cognitivegears]

I've been iterating on the cable design for this, and the best I've been able to come up with is this:

H0Worb6.jpeg

Easy to plug in and pretty clean - just made with a ribbon cable and dupont crimper (they run about $20-30 on Amazon if you don't have one). And in a pinch those single pin dupont cables "jumper wires" work great! Honestly, besides missing the display (which there is an OSD anyway,) I think this is a great way to go!

[bazza_12]

pfft Lego. This is "ghetto", should have used megabloks

*waiting for stickle bricks version

[jordi]

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, but seeing as MT32 support is vastly more prevalent on the PC core, I guess it's kind of appropriate.

Disclaimer: I'm a total novice when it comes to MIDI and DOS games.

After a week-long journey, I've finally managed to experience the joys of MT32 audio (spoiler: it's amazing) and I used only what I already had on-hand.

When I heard about MT32-Pi first, I thought I would buy a Pi A+, aluminium case, and a [pre-built] mt32-Pi hat, & a male-to-male USB cable. That would have cost $100+ and probably close to a month of waiting time. Ain't nobody got time for that, so I did my research and realised I already had everything I need to get the setup going.

I was first going to splice a USB3 cable to use the user port -- but really didn't want to butcher a perfectly good cable -- and I had a bunch of jumper cables, so I removed my IO board and wired it all up directly. I just followed the wiring guide at the bottom of the page here:
https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/wik ... connection

Anyway, without further ado, here is the [ghetto] MT32-Pi in all its glory:

photo_2021-03-03 05.32.24.jpeg

It's a Raspberry Pi 3B. I tried powering it directly from the DE10-Nano with stock power supply, but I was getting some distortion with heavier games so I'm powering the Pi separately.

I literally knew nothing about MIDI before I started and I had only ever played DOS games with SoundBlaster audio in the past, so the quality of the music in games with this is far superior to anything I've experienced before and brings new life to games like Sim City 2000, Warcraft 2, Doom and Monkey Island. Long story short, I'm totally sold on this device, and I'm going to get the Pi 3 A+, the case and the hat so I can get the IO board back on to play these on my CRT.

My advice to anyone thinking about doing this... go for it, if you don't have a Pi already, get a 3 A+, some jumper cables and build from there. It's easy and totally worth it!

Hi! Could you please do a 'top' photo to clearly see which pins go where?

I saw the schema and it was not so clear for me.

[chanunnaki]

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, but seeing as MT32 support is vastly more prevalent on the PC core, I guess it's kind of appropriate.

Disclaimer: I'm a total novice when it comes to MIDI and DOS games.

After a week-long journey, I've finally managed to experience the joys of MT32 audio (spoiler: it's amazing) and I used only what I already had on-hand.

When I heard about MT32-Pi first, I thought I would buy a Pi A+, aluminium case, and a [pre-built] mt32-Pi hat, & a male-to-male USB cable. That would have cost $100+ and probably close to a month of waiting time. Ain't nobody got time for that, so I did my research and realised I already had everything I need to get the setup going.

I was first going to splice a USB3 cable to use the user port -- but really didn't want to butcher a perfectly good cable -- and I had a bunch of jumper cables, so I removed my IO board and wired it all up directly. I just followed the wiring guide at the bottom of the page here:
https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/wik ... connection

Anyway, without further ado, here is the [ghetto] MT32-Pi in all its glory:

photo_2021-03-03 05.32.24.jpeg

It's a Raspberry Pi 3B. I tried powering it directly from the DE10-Nano with stock power supply, but I was getting some distortion with heavier games so I'm powering the Pi separately.

I literally knew nothing about MIDI before I started and I had only ever played DOS games with SoundBlaster audio in the past, so the quality of the music in games with this is far superior to anything I've experienced before and brings new life to games like Sim City 2000, Warcraft 2, Doom and Monkey Island. Long story short, I'm totally sold on this device, and I'm going to get the Pi 3 A+, the case and the hat so I can get the IO board back on to play these on my CRT.

My advice to anyone thinking about doing this... go for it, if you don't have a Pi already, get a 3 A+, some jumper cables and build from there. It's easy and totally worth it!

Hi! Could you please do a 'top' photo to clearly see which pins go where?

I saw the schema and it was not so clear for me.

Sorry friend, I've dismantled my ghetto MT32-pi and went all-in on the official board/Pi3. I hope someone else can help you out.