[Coco] UltiMusE SOURCE CODE to be released

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/1/05 4:32:52 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
rtaylor at bayou.com writes:

How  dependent is UltiMusE on OS-9 calls?  Perhaps somebody can convert it  
to a Portal-9 project and port it to Disk  BASIC.



Well Roger, ISTR thinking a long time ago that it would be a LOT of work to  
convert it to RSDOS, and not just the fact that you'd be working in assembler  
(starting from the output of the C compiler on an OS9 box).
 
But it doesn't rely on multitasking (just that pipeline), and if you wrote  
(and probably already have a library of) file opening and other basic routines, 
 it might not be so hard.  The graphics and menus are all done "by hand" so  
it would be a straight port.
 
Roger, you understand the virtual memory stuff, as used in Projector,  better 
than anyone else.  You could probably coach someone thru converting  my C 
code to assembler in that regard, with direct zaps to the DAT  registers.
 
You (or whoever) would have to either figure a way to emulate the  pipelining 
of Umuse into Fran, including switching between the two programs in  DAT 
blocks, or putting them both in one 64K space, by "fragging out" a lot more  8K 
modules.  I actually had plans for doing that, to eliminate the pipeline  in OS9 
and make the screen redraws faster.  There was no guarantee that it  would 
work before I started, and by then the demand for UME had died down to a  couple 
of MM/1 users (where we romp thru Elysians fields of 2 MEGs of RAM, no  
stinkin' pipelines).
 
Anyway, it would be smaller and faster in assembler -- though  speed-critical 
routines already are.  --Mike K.