sted2

STed2 is a step-input MIDI sequencer in the Recomposer tradition, originally written by Takayuki "TURBO" Toda for the Sharp X68000 (1991–1997) and ported to Linux/UNIX by Daisuke Nagano (Studio Breeze) starting in 1998. The Linux port last shipped in Debian as 2.07m+20010303-4 and has not built cleanly on a modern system in many years.

This repository revives that port: builds on current Ubuntu / Debian, runs on a 64-bit X11 desktop without a compositor, and ships a turnkey FluidSynth hookup so you can hear what you sequence on a stock soft-synth install.

What's fixed since 2.07m+20010303-4

Area	Symptom on a modern system	Fix
64-bit malloc	Cannot allocate track buffers. at startup.	_dos_malloc no longer returns the Human68k 0x82000000 sentinel; callers in sted.c test for NULL instead of casting pointers to int.
GCC ≥ 14 build	Implicit declarations are errors; raw multi-line string literals are errors; -fno-common breaks header-level globals; C99 inline drops external symbols.	CFLAGS set documented below; raw multiline sprintf in rcptomid.c joined with C string continuation.
Debian build-deps	Package names from 2002 (xlibs-dev, libxr-dev, libncurses5-dev) no longer exist.	debian/control updated; debian/compat set to a working debhelper level.
X11 minimize / restore	Without a compositor, restoring an iconified window leaves it black.	Window contents are mirrored to a private pixmap and copied back on Expose / MapNotify / VisibilityNotify.
Ctrl+G score view	The X68000 original drew treble/bass clefs, note heads, flags, rests, and accidentals in the graphical score display using CGROM 外字 (gaiji) tiles. Those byte sequences didn't survive an EUC-JP → UTF-8 round trip somewhere in the source's history, so on Linux the g_print(..., "??", ...) calls rendered nothing and the score panel came up as an empty staff.	Redraw from 1bpp bitmaps extracted from MusixTeX-rendered glyphs — clefs, whole/half/quarter heads, 8th–64th upstem flags and rests, sharp, flat, augmentation dot. See tools/extract_clefs.py and tools/extract_notation.py for the extraction pipeline.
Flat-key note-letter input	On ARM (unsigned-char default), typing a letter flatted by the current key signature — B in F major, B / E in Bb major, etc. — was silently rejected because key_shi[]'s -1 sentinels decoded as 0xFF and made ctc() overflow past MIDI 127. Sharp keys were fine (+1 sentinels are unaffected).	Declare key_shi[] and sharp_yp[] as signed char explicitly.
make install workflow	po/ died on EUC-JP comments; cnf substitution was a no-op; binary and cnf were installed to incompatible paths; launchers had no install rule.	po/ and intl/ dropped from SUBDIRS; cnf substitution fixed; the real binary is installed alongside the cnf (${prefix}/lib/sted/) and a bash launcher at ${prefix}/bin/sted2 is what users actually invoke.
FluidSynth integration	STed2 wants a /dev/midi-style raw device and forks an external player; neither maps to a stock soft-synth.	Launcher wires snd-virmidi ↔ FluidSynth via aconnect; sted2-play forwards SMF tempfiles to FluidSynth via aplaymidi.

Install via apt (Debian/Ubuntu)

Signed amd64/arm64 packages are published from CI to a GitHub Pages apt repository:

sudo curl -fsSL -o /usr/share/keyrings/sted2-archive-keyring.gpg \
    https://rtanote.github.io/sted2/sted2-archive-keyring.gpg
echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/sted2-archive-keyring.gpg] https://rtanote.github.io/sted2 stable main' \
    | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sted2.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sted2

sudo usermod -aG audio "$USER"   # log out / log in once

The package installs the launcher at /usr/bin/sted2, the real binary and data in /usr/lib/sted/, and the editable config in /etc/sted2/ (symlinked back into /usr/lib/sted/, root:audio g+w via dpkg-statoverride). fluidsynth and fluid-soundfont-gm are recommends — install them for the out-of-the-box sound path.

Quick start (build from source)

Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 (x86_64 and aarch64).

sudo apt install build-essential autoconf automake \
    libx11-dev libxaw7-dev libxpm-dev libxt-dev libxmu-dev \
    libncurses-dev libasound2-dev pkg-config

cd sted2-2.07m+20010303
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make CFLAGS="-g -O2 -fgnu89-inline -fcommon \
             -Wno-implicit-function-declaration -Wno-unused-result"
sudo make install

sudo usermod -aG audio "$USER"   # log out / log in once

Then just type sted2. To get sound out of the box, see FluidSynth + virmidi setup below.

What make install produces

/usr/local/lib/sted/                 # data dir (root:audio, g+w)
    sted2                            # the real binary
    sted2.cnf                        # editable config (see "Customizing")
    sted2.fon
    deffile/{cm64,sc55,sc55mk2,sc88}.def
/usr/local/bin/
    sted2                            # bash launcher — what users invoke
    sted2-play                       # PLAY-time wrapper around aplaymidi

The real binary lives in the data directory because STed2 derives its config-file path from argv[0] via strmfe(); keeping binary and cnf adjacent is the simplest way to make that lookup succeed for any --prefix.

CFLAGS notes

Flag	Why
-fgnu89-inline	C99 inline semantics do not emit external symbols and break linking.
-fcommon	Header-level globals rely on the pre-GCC 10 default.
-Wno-implicit-function-declaration	Many call sites lack prototypes; GCC 14 makes this an error.
-Wno-unused-result	A handful of fread() calls discard the return value.

Customizing your install

All knobs live in /usr/local/lib/sted/sted2.cnf. Edit with any text editor (the file is root:audio with group write, so members of the audio group can change it directly; otherwise sudo $EDITOR).

The launcher's only automatic edit is midi_port, and only when the current value still looks like a default (/dev/midi or /dev/snd/midiC[0-9]+D0). Any other value is treated as user-customized and left alone. So you can change player, font_name, def_path, key bindings, etc. freely.

Smaller font (DevTerm-style 1280×480 screens)

Default window is 96×32 cells × 16 px = 768×512 px. On a 480 px-tall display that doesn't fit. The cnf template already lists size alternatives; switch the active one from -16- to -14- (giving 32×14 = 448 px):

-*#font_name=-\*-fixed-\*-r-normal--14-\*-\*-\*
-#font_name=-\*-fixed-\*-r-normal--16-\*-\*-\*
+#font_name=-\*-fixed-\*-r-normal--14-\*-\*-\*
+*#font_name=-\*-fixed-\*-r-normal--16-\*-\*-\*

(*# is the cnf's "commented out" marker, # is "active".)

Hide the panel / titlebar on cramped screens

STed2 sets min_size == max_size on its X11 window, so window managers treat it as non-resizable — F11, maximize buttons, and normal Alt-space fullscreen shortcuts all no-op. On small displays (DevTerm 1280×480 in particular) the WM panel eats ~30 px off the top, so even the 14-px font's 672×448 window ends up clipped at the bottom.

Push the window into WM fullscreen state via wmctrl: the STed2 window itself stays exactly its intrinsic size, but the panel and title bar disappear so nothing overlaps it.

sudo apt install wmctrl
cat > ~/bin/sted2-fs <<'SCRIPT'
#!/bin/bash
# Launch STed2 and put its window into WM fullscreen state.
# Match by WM_CLASS ("sted") — WM_NAME is COMPOUND_TEXT and wmctrl
# reports it as "N/A", so title-based matching does not work.
sted2 &
STED_PID=$!
for i in $(seq 1 30); do
  if wmctrl -lx | awk '{print tolower($3)}' | grep -q '^\.sted'; then
    wmctrl -x -r sted -b add,fullscreen
    break
  fi
  sleep 0.2
done
wait $STED_PID
SCRIPT
chmod +x ~/bin/sted2-fs

Then invoke sted2-fs instead of sted2. To break out of fullscreen without quitting STed2, from another terminal:

wmctrl -x -r sted -b remove,fullscreen

Tested on Xfce (xfwm4) 4.16; the recipe is WM-neutral in principle (any EWMH-compliant WM should honor _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN).

Use a USB-MIDI hardware synth instead of FluidSynth

1. Plug in the device. aconnect -l shows its ALSA seq client and port.

2. Edit cnf:

   #midi_port=/dev/snd/midiC<your-card>D0
   #player=0,aplaymidi -p "<client>:<port>"
   

3. Don't install / load snd-virmidi. The launcher will see no virmidi client and leave your midi_port alone. FluidSynth, if present, just won't be used.

Use an external player (TiMidity, etc.)

#player=1,timidity -idq -f -EFchorus=0 -EFreverb=0 -s22.05

The launcher's midi_port rule still applies (only stomps on virmidi-style defaults), so the two settings are independent.

FluidSynth + virmidi setup

STed2 has two distinct MIDI paths:

cnf key	Role	Default in this repo
#midi_port=	Raw character device opened for MIDI IN (step input echo, external MIDI keyboard).	Auto-pointed at snd-virmidi by the launcher.
#player=	External command forked on PLAY to render the song.	sted2-play, which calls aplaymidi -p <FluidSynth port>.

sudo apt install fluidsynth fluid-soundfont-gm

# Auto-load virmidi at boot
echo snd-virmidi | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/snd-virmidi.conf
sudo modprobe snd-virmidi

# Optional: pin the card index so the device path stays stable across reboots
echo 'options snd-virmidi index=2' | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/snd-virmidi.conf

The launcher does the rest at startup: discovers the current Virtual Raw MIDI and FLUID Synth ALSA sequencer clients, updates midi_port in the cnf to match, and aconnects the two together. No manual port-number bookkeeping required.

Run

sted2                  # full-screen X11 editor
sted2 mysong.RCP       # open a file
sted2 -h               # show all options

A keyboard cheat sheet — including the X68000-to-PC-keyboard mapping you will need to understand the in-app help — is in docs/SHORTCUTS.md. The original 1996 manuals (full operation manual and online help) live in sted2-2.07m+20010303/doc/original_docs/sted207/ in Shift-JIS. Those files, along with doc/original_docs/tuitou.doc (a 1998 memorial to Takayuki "TURBO" Toda), are preserved verbatim as required by the upstream license — please note that as vintage material they contain era-appropriate personal contact information from collaborators.

Repository layout

sted2/
├── README.md
├── LICENSE            # upstream license + fork terms
├── NOTICE             # third-party attributions (MusiXTeX)
├── docs/
│   └── SHORTCUTS.md   # UTF-8 keyboard cheat sheet (this fork)
├── sted2-2.07m+20010303/   # source tree (upstream + Debian + this fork)
│   ├── launchers/
│   │   ├── sted2      # ${prefix}/bin/sted2 — bash launcher
│   │   └── sted2-play # ${prefix}/bin/sted2-play — PLAY-time player
│   └── debian/        # dpkg-buildpackage-ready packaging (debhelper 13)
└── upstream/          # Debian snapshot archive for reference

The source tree is laid out as a Debian 2.07m+20010303-4 checkout. Commit history walks pristine upstream → Debian packaging → fixes for modern Linux.

License

See LICENSE at the repo root. In short: per the upstream notice recorded in sted2-2.07m+20010303/debian/copyright:

Right for modification and improvement is granted. However it is requested that when a modified version is publicly released, the accompanying DOC and HIS files are distributed along with it.

The original documentation (doc/original_docs/) is preserved in this tree to satisfy that request. Changes in this fork are © 2026 contributors and offered under the same terms.

Third-party assets (the MusiXTeX-derived notation bitmaps) are covered in NOTICE.

Original authors:

• Takayuki "TURBO" Toda (1991–1997, X68000)
• Daisuke Nagano / Studio Breeze (1998–, Linux/UNIX port)
• Masayuki Hatta (initial Debian packaging, 2000)
• Junichi Uekawa (Debian packaging, 2001–)