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From: barons@ORC.Olivetti.Com (Barry Arons)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,comp.music
Subject: Re: Need RS232 <=> MIDI converter?
Keywords: MIDI interfaces, Hinton, RS-232, Sparcstation
Message-ID: <48850@ricerca.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jan 90 22:02:05 GMT
References: <18129@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU>
Sender: news@orc.Olivetti.Com
Reply-To: barons@ORC.Olivetti.Com (Barry Arons)
Followup-To: rec.music.synth
Organization: Olivetti Research California
Lines: 24

I have about 10 Hinton MIDIC boxes that we are using from Sun 3/60's
running SunOS and Olivetti M380's (intel 386) running Mach.  We are
using them to control some Yamaha Mixers and Akai audio crossbar
switches.   I posted a detailed message to comp.music many months ago,
but I cannot seem to find a copy to re-post.  In general the boxes are
quite good, and we have not had any problesm with them.  After receiving
the MIDICs, I wrote a device interface to the box and a simple
interactive X Window application to control the mixers in a day.  

We ordered them direct from England, and had them Fedexed to us.  They
got hung in customs for an extra while while we scrambled to fill out
paper work saying that the FCC didn't need to worry about emissions.

Note, also, that it *is* possible to MIDI direct from a Sparcstation. 
There is apparently an unused high precision timer that can be poked to
tick at the correct MIDI rate using a standard serial port.   It was
demoed at a show a while ago.  I have a one page description of the
demos and it says that "Sun intends to make the driver available to
interested parties through users groups". 

Barry Arons                      phone:    +1 415-496-6264
Olivetti Research California     fax:      +1 415-496-6219
2882 Sand Hill Road, Suite 210   internet: arons@orc.olivetti.com
Menlo Park, CA 94025             uucp:     {sri-unix|oliveb}!orc!arons