[goldenarpharazon]

Originally Posted by DarkStar

I have no idea about IP addresses and ports (as used in oscii-bot scripts, and generally). Can someone explain them clearly?

The IP address and port associate a network path for data to pass between Reaper to and from OSCII-Bot, and to and from OSCII-Bot and the Midi device. In practice this network path is likely to be all internal within the computer (workstation/laptop etc) that runs Reaper which perhaps makes it a little confusing: although passed using the IP network protocol, the data is just handed on between programmes within the computer rather than going over any external network.


The IP Address and port corresponds to part of the key network protocol defining the internet. The IP address identifies a unique network end point [like 23 Acacia Gardens, Anytown] whereas the port identifies a sub-classification of letter boxes at house addresses [e.g. one for newspapers, one for junk circulars, one for personal mail] - this https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/.../cc958829.aspx whilst quite technical might be helpful to explain IP addresses and this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_(...er_networking) explains ports


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Originally Posted by DarkStar

And the MIDI lines reference the MIDI device name, as seen in the Control Surface definition (is that right?)

Yes almost. It needs to match, or be a substring of, the appropriate Midi device name in preferences, Audio, Midi Device settings.

Originally Posted by DarkStar

Now, for the @input ... OSC:
-- the first item is some unique name, for use within the script

Yes

Originally Posted by DarkStar

-- the IP address is sometimes '*', or 'localhost' or '192.168.1.2'
-- what do those 3 mean?
-- what's the difference?

* means listen on any IP address as a wildcard
localhost is a standard name used to identify "this local computer" as a loopback - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localhost
192.168.1.2 is a specific Class C IP address that happens to be allocated to this computer

Originally Posted by DarkStar

-- the port number is (always?) 9000; why is that number used?
-- how do I know that nothing-else is using it?

9000 and 8000 are Reaper OSC default ports borrowed (probably) from the fairly common "TouchOSC" device's implementation. One can change them from defaults if wished in the control surface settings. You don't "know" that nothing else is using the port but it won't matter since the port is being used to communicate solely between 2 end points and isn't in the reserved range below 1024 - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...P_port_numbers
Use the defaults unless you have a specific external control surface device that can't be changed (unlikely) or are part of a complex network (unlikely in personal music making)

Originally Posted by DarkStar

And for the @output ... OSC:
-- the first item is some unique name, for use within the script
-- the IP address is sometimes or 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1 or '192.168.0.10'
-- what do those 3 mean?
-- what's the difference?
-- the port number is (always?) 8000; why is that number used?
-- how do I know that nothing-else is using it?

-- why don't the 2 OSC lines use the same IP address?

localhost and 127.0.0.1 are synonyms (i.e. name is equivalent to number)
192.168.0.10 is a different class C address uniquely allocated to another computer on another network. The examples asked about are from different setups running on different computers/networks so the unique IP address will be different.