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From: dgold@basso.actrix.co.nz (Dale Gold)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: MIDI
Message-ID: <4840.tnews@basso.actrix.co.nz>
Date: 12 Nov 90 18:26:13 GMT
Followup-To: rec.music.synth,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,sci.electronics
Organization: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Lines: 30

Quoted from - cs161fhn@sdcc10.ucsd.edu (Dennis Lou):
> On my room mate's Amiga, he plugs a little box into his serial port
> and voila! he's got MIDI in, out, and thru.
> [...]
> Why can't you do this on an IBM?  What does the Roland MPU-401 
> have that a modified serial interface doesn't?  

A friend of mine has built an IBM interface based roughly on my homemade
Amiga box. The problem is that all (?most?) of the good IBM software
is designed for the MPU-401, which has a lot of built-in features. Don't
ask me what they are! :-) My friend is going to write his own s/ware, so
for him, it's not a problem.

> What does the Amiga serial interface have that the IBM's doesn't? 

Basically, nothing. My old A1000 has a source of power through the serial 
port - I think this was eliminated in the 500-3000 range. Otherwise, 
there's nothing unusual in the Amiga port.

> (please, let's not start a processor/architecture war here :-)
> 
No way, mate!

Cheers, Dale 
--
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  |                              |    Critics can't even make     |
  |  dgold@basso.actrix.co.nz    |  music by rubbing their back   |
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