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From: tjr@ihnet.UUCP (Tom Roberts)
Newsgroups: net.music.synth
Subject: MIDI grammar
Message-ID: <316@ihnet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 14:39:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihnet.316
Posted: Thu Oct 17 14:39:18 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 03:48:54 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 15

Regarding a context-free grammar describing the MIDI interface:

While it might be useful in describing the interface, I seriously
doubt it would be useful in implementing any MIDI equipment.
By it nature, musical equipment using MIDI must respond quickly
to incoming MIDI commands, and there probably aren't enough CPU
cycles available to handle a grammatical parser. The "language"
just isn't complicated enough to warrant it. A typical implementation
would simply separate commands into pieces (channel #, opcode, etc.)
and dispatch to operational routines based on the opcode. This
will be faster and simpler than any yacc-based approach.

	Tom Roberts
	AT&T Bell Laboratories
	ihnp4!ihnet!tjr