I know I’ve been fairly silent for the past month on this page, but as those who read the RGCUD newsgroup are aware, I am working on another upgrade: Ultima V with MIDI music. I am pleased to say that the results have been fairly good. I have it all working with the exception of the endgame.
There were a few on the newsgroup that suggested I write for both the Atari ST version of the music and the C64/Apple II versions. (the latter being my preference) Both versions apparently had the same score, they just played different music at different points. While this at first seemed like a daunting task (even deciphering the first half of the code was somewhat difficult – it was compiler generated), it resulted in a much more robust design for the midi upgrade. The program makes a few key calls into a separate midi driver loaded at run-time. It has made me rethink my approach to U2 and U3 in a way that would allow for easier updates in the future… and possibly allowing me to overcome the shortcomings of midpak.
But anyway, I’m rambling on with info that’s better saved for a readme file. Hopefully this weekend I will throw up a project page for it. And in a few weeks I should have a download available. In the mean time, you can look at this if you want something to drool over. Keep checking back, and so long for now!