Guide

How to Connect mt32-pi Over USB Serial

 ·  How To, MIDI, MS-DOS, Retrocomputing, Retrogaming, Sound

The main mt32-pi guide connects the Pi to a DOS PC by wiring an RS232-to-TTL converter module onto the Pi’s GPIO header. From release v0.10.0, mt32-pi supports USB serial devices directly — so you can drop the converter and the wiring and just use a plain USB-to-serial cable.

What you need

  • A USB-to-serial cable (e.g. this one)
  • A null-modem serial adapter (e.g. this one)

Plug the USB end into the Pi and the serial end — via the null-modem adapter — into the PC’s serial port.

Set the baud rate

Edit mt32-pi.cfg on the Pi’s microSD card. A DOS PC serial port can’t run at MIDI’s standard 31250 bps, so tell mt32-pi to use 38400 — the closest “PC standard” rate. Replace:

usb_serial_baud_rate = 31250

with:

usb_serial_baud_rate = 38400

Everything else is the same

The rest of the setup is identical to the main guide: run SoftMPU on the DOS PC pointed at COM1, configure your games for Roland MT-32, Roland Sound Canvas or General MIDI on port 330, and switch synth modes from the front panel. (As with any SoftMPU setup, games that use a DOS extender — Doom, for example — won’t work over serial MIDI.)

I tested it with The Secret of Monkey Island. Works great.

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