VOGONS


UltraSound license

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First post, by JKing

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I'm interested in trying the UltraSound emulator included with DOSBox for the purposes of MIDI playback, but I am uncertain of the legal ramifications of doing so, as I do not and have never owned an actual UltraSound.

From what I understand one needs patches (sound sample) and the ULTRAMID loader, a part of Gravis' original driver package, in order to make it all work. My reading suggests that the patches themselves were produced by a third party rather than Gravis themselves, so that alone is a problem, but free patches are available.

ULTRAMID, however, is an even more interesting problem: While the original GUS driver package is readily available for anyone looking to download it, I see no license in evidence either included as a text file or as a screen in the installer. Short of somehow getting my hands on an UltraSound manual to see if there's a license spelled out -there-, I don't know what else to do. I even looked at a mirror of Gravis' own FTP server which contained hordes of GUS-related files, but still found no license.

Does anyone know what the license terms are, or would I have to seriously educate myself as to Canadian and American copyright law, and even possibly the terms of Kensignton's acquisition of Advanced Gravis?

Or have I missed an obvious source for the license to the driver software somewhere?

Reply 1 of 3, by dh4rm4

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There are, however, free altenatives to the patch set and DOS midi player. Propats Lite and OpenCubicPlayer come to mind as options.

Reply 2 of 3, by JKing

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Well, I was aiming to use it for games, so Cubic Player doesn't really help that much. 🙁 Some games, from what I hear, don't require the use of ultramid, but I'm sure many I'd like to try will.

Were there a free re-implementation of ultramid I'd be golden (I already mentioned I knew of free patches), but I've not seen any evidence of such a thing existing.

Reply 3 of 3, by dh4rm4

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All games that directly support GUS MIDI come with their own copy of Ultramid and patches included - Wing Commander III for example.

Of you're that worried you could purchase a second hand GUS of some sort.

Maybe you could file a bug report asking the DOSBox devs to implement such a feature?