Export MIDI as text

Back in the day (20+ years ago) when I was using Cakewalk products (Sonar, Overture), there was something called CAL (Cakewalk Application Language) with which you could edit a text version of your MIDI files with a text editor, and then reimport them back into the software. I had created my own software to smooth out crescendos, add a little randomness to the velocity or note start time, quantize, etc. Is there any way to get a text version of the MIDI behind a score's playback?