Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!agate!eos!phil
From: phil@eos.UUCP (Phil Stone)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: I am considering buying a amiga, a few questions
Summary: 2 answers
Message-ID: <756@eos.UUCP>
Date: 20 May 88 23:07:35 GMT
References: <2657@louie.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: phil@eos.UUCP (Phil Stone)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 39

In article <2657@louie.udel.EDU> JESSE%SLUVCA.BITNET@cornellc.ccs.cornell.edu writes:
>I am considering buying an amiga.  I have a few questions, I hope someone...

I'll just field a couple of these...

>3) Can a program open the serial device is such a manner that no other
> currently running program can access it?
>

Yes...involves opening the serial device with an "exclusive access" option.

>
>5) One of my interests is in writting programs that deal with the MIDI
>   interface
>   but I cant find any system calls for the MIDI.  When I buy a midi board,
>   where does it plug in at?  Can I still use the port for what it was intended
>   for?  Does a subroutine package come with the midi hardware?  Who makes a
>   GOOD midi board?

MIDI ports plug right into the serial interface - code that deals with them
looks like any other serial I/O (just change the baud rate to 31250 and
yer loggin'!)  Uses up the serial port, though.  Rumors of serial port
expansion options (for the 2000, at least) abound.  Since the serial port
already has a UART built in, the MIDI interface consists of a mere opto-
isolator and op-amp, and some dangling cables - several sources available,
and you should be able to find one for no more than $25 (considering it's
about $5 worth of parts!).  Don't let the Atari-ST hype about built in
MIDI sway you from this machine; it's ridiculously easy and cheap to add
and use MIDI on the Amiga.  Good Luck!

		Phil

P.S. An entire MIDI library is available in the public domain, and from 
what I've seen of it, it looks great, though it might take awhile to
figure out.

phil@eos.arc.nasa.gov
phil@eos.UUCP
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