Successfull port to TomTom GPS

[Fabien Gigante]

Hello dear Exult team,

[Fabien Gigante]

Hello dear Exult team,

I'm droping you a mail (as you suggested on the download page) to inform you that I have successfully ported exult to my TomTom GPS (based on Linux-ARM). See http://tomtomheaven.free.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1414 (sorry, this forum is in French...)

I started from code source from the 1.2 stable version, struggled a bit bulding the prerequisites (SDL_mixer) and Exult itself with the configure/makefile...

Then, I did the following changes to the code:
- I activated the #ifdef __zaurus__ specific code in the 8bit blit routines (otherwise I had some alignment problems...)
- I took the pieces of code done for the PowerPC to have a virtual keyboard and just integrated those back into the 1.2 source code, and removed the #ifdef UNDER_CE that used to condition them.
- I added a ogg_volume to the config file (it was very much too loud)
audio\Midi.cc(56):int ogg_volume = MIX_MAX_VOLUME;
audio\Midi.cc(151): Mix_VolumeMusic(ogg_volume);
audio\Midi.cc(258): Mix_VolumeMusic(ogg_volume);
audio\Midi.cc(517): config->value("config/audio/midi/ogg_volume",ogg_volume,MIX_MAX_VOLUME);
audio\Midi.cc(674): Mix_VolumeMusic(ogg_volume);
- I fixed the crash when launching SerpentIsle, by taking the following piece of code from a more recent code version of in playfli.cc:
case 15: { [...] } break;

Fabien

[Kensu]

O_o

Gives a whole new meaning to the Guardian saying "You're going the wrong way, my friend!"

[artaxerxes]

Fabien,

the forum is only viewable with an account....

Artaxerxes

ps: and amazing work!

[Fabien Gigante]

You're right. Here's a link that doesn't need any:

http://www.tomtomheaven.com/index.php?o ... &Itemid=31

Ps : thanks

[Dominus]

Ouch, you now that Utima 7 is not freware? You (?) are offering both along with your program.
I really wish you wouldn't do that.

[marzo]

Fabien: take a look at the map here. If you live in any of the countries colored in blue, then it is unlawful to distribute U7 and SI (see this). Even if you *don't* live in one of the countries in blue, EA (the owner of Ultima copyright) is US based, and US law doesn't recognize the term.

Unless you change the package to not include the games, I am afraid we will have to delete the link in your post; I am giving a warning first and some time for action before taking these measures, though, because it *is* very interesting work (and we are saying this because you are violating the #1 rule of the Phorum).

[Fabien Gigante]

Thank you for the warning and explanaition. I will have the package changed.

[cyph (tomtomheaven)]

Dear men,

I have been warned by Fabien about the fact that its package were an infrigement of the US Law.
I have changed the package and changed the news on the portal. The 2 games are not included anymore in the package. I prefer to be carefull.

But, just please tell us : what is the difference between game pack (gfx data...) and the music package (that we could also consider as copyrighted materials...) and that you put in download here :

http://exult.info/download.php

Is it an exception of the rules?

Thank you for your explanation and your good job.

Cyph
http://www.tomtomheaven.com

[Dominus]

The music package is kind of a grey area (somewhere in this forum we discussed this some more). With the music/sfx packages we do NOT distribute files that came with the original games. The original games did not have files with the music in it, only instructions for your music device what notes to play. We only offer the recordings of the music that the music device played following the instructions of the game.


How or if offering these recordings infringes the copyright is way beyond my legal knowledge and I can't really find something on the web right away.

Btw.

I have been warned by Fabien about the fact that its package were an infrigement of the US Law.

As Marzo pointed out, this does not only infringe US law

But thanks to both of you, Fabien and Cyph, that you fixed this. And thanks for this excellent port. Is there a (youtube?) video of this in action? I'd really like to see how that plays and the screenshots only give me an idea.

[marzo]

I will add that if you download the music packs, you will not be able to play the entire games as you can with the data that was in the TomTom package -- you will be able to play the musics and that is it.

Now, given that (1) that the intended use of the packs is for playback of music in legally-owned U7 and/or SI under Exult (but of course, we neither can nor want to monitor or control what people do with the packs), (2) that Exult and the packs are distributed with no commercial intent whatsoever, (3) that while the end result (what you hear) is essentially the same, there has been a substantial transformation of the original data (since the original musics were dynamically synthesized by the games), (4) that Exult can play the original data directly (although for the best results you need a real MT-32 or a (legally-grey) MT-32 emulator) and (5) the musics represent a (small) fraction of all the game data of BG and SI, one could construct a fair use argument in favor of letting them be downloaded. The validity of such an argument would have to be determined in court, though.

[matthieu]

Where can I download the final version of dosbox for tomtom

[Dominus]

this is the exult forum and not the dosbox forum. Allthough we love dosbox, please stay on topic

[matthieu]

Excuse me but is dosbox is the same thing that exult

[marzo]

No, it is not. Although there is a small overlap (in that both allow you to play U7 and SI), they are completely different things: DOSBox is a DOS emulator, which also emulates hardware devices, while Exult is a completely new engine for U7/SI which uses the original data.

[Dominus]

see http://www.dosbox.com/