midiplay - Standard MIDI file (SMF) player for UNIX environment - 

*About midiplay
===============

 midiplay is a Standard MIDI file (SMF) player for UNIX. midiplay reads
 SMF and plays it with serial port attached on  your machine. You need
 not to have any MIDI drivers, sound drivers or else.


*Features
=========

 midiplay has following features: 

  * Plays SMF file.
  * Initialize MIDI module (GM, GS, SC-88, XG).
  * Random play.
  * Some keyboard control (FF, REW, Restart).
  * Supports MIDI port change (unauthorised SMF message).
  * Can play with PC's serial port. There are no need any
    MIDI/Sound driver.
  * But it also supports any /dev/midi?? (OSS's midi raw device).
  * Some accurate performing (using nanosleep and gettimeofday jointly.
  * NLS support.
  * etc. 


*Connection to MIDI module
==========================

 If your  MIDI module has  a jack  s.t.  "COMPUTER", "COM", and so  on,
 you've a chance  that be able  to  use the module  with this software.
 Check  for your machine's  serial port  can handle 38400  bps for data
 transmission rate.  If can, connect your machine  and MIDI module with
 "cross serial cable". 


*Software installation
======================

 midiplay  can compile with configure  scripts. See the INSTALL to know
 basic installation method with configure scripts. The script  has some
 other midiplay specific options as following: 

   --disable-key-control 

 If it supplied, midiplay disables any keyboard control functions.  You
 should  also  supply this option   if your  compile failed  with  some
 fcntl() functions. 

   --with-serial-device 

 Set your serial device name s.t. /dev/ttyS0 (Linux), /dev/ttyd0 (FreeBSD).
 If not specified, default value (/dev/ttyS0 (LInux), /dev/ttyd0 (FreeBSD))
 is chosen.


 With all configure successfully  proceeded, type make and make install.
 It also installs some nls databases for this package.  If you want  to
 use midiplay with your language, you can modify  po/midiplay.pot  with 
 your language. If translation complete, compile with  gettext  package
 and install it in  expected directory. And you  can see some  messages
 from midiplay with your language.


*Usage
======

   % midiplay (options) <SMF files ...>

 Options will be listed with command  line option -h  / --help.  If you
 have not  supplied  configure  option  --disable-key-control, you  can
 control some basic functions of midiplay with your keyboard:

     s : restart current playing
     SPC, > : forward to next song ( if multiple SMF is given )
          < : back to previous song ( " )

 You can stop the playing with Control-C or kill -HUP (pid) .


*RCPPLAY
========

 An shell script `rcpplay` is also shipped in this archive. It can play
 both SMF and RCP/R36 format file.  Playing RCP/R36 format requires
 the RCP-to-SMF converter `rcpconv`. It will be available at the same
 location of midiplay (URL is described below).


*Copying
========

  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
  any later version.

  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.


*Availability
=============

 The latest version of midiplay may able to get at this URL:

  http://member.nifty.ne.jp/Breeze/linux/index.html


*Authors
========

 midiplay is originally developed by Takanari HAYAMA <taki@igel.co.jp>. 
 And it designed to perform on SunOS 4.x ,HP-UX 9.x and other UNIX-like
 environment.

 midiplay uses Andrew Arensburger's 'midifile' library. It is available
 at http://www.cfar.umd.edu/users/arensb/.

 From version 0.5+01, some modifications are attached by Daisuke NAGANO
 <breeze.nagano@nifty.ne.jp>. It  has  been developed  in Linux 2.x.x
 (and  some  informations  about  it can run on some other system I've 
 received).

 This README is written by Daisuke NAGANO.