Xref: utzoo comp.sys.atari.st:11820 rec.music.synth:4811 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu!ralphw From: ralphw@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,rec.music.synth Subject: MIDI Networking Message-ID: <3277@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Date: 11 Oct 88 15:29:36 GMT References: <3602@druhi.ATT.COM> <6424@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <594@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> Sender: netnews@pt.cs.cmu.edu Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 47 In article <594@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >In article <6424@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Moshe Braner) writes: >> [stuff deleted] >> >>What's new in the field of ST networking through the MIDI ports? >> > >i haven't been writing any networking code, but i have been looking into >MIDI networking. you could use a true ring topology, with packets being >received and retransmitted around the ring. ... >anyone want to write a TCP/IP sort of network? Yes. The thing to agree on would be the encapsulation of the packets. Eventually you would submit this to the DARPA Network Information Center (SRI-NIC) in the form of an RFC, but first: 1) talk about it work networking people (comp.protocols.tcp-ip) 2) other users of the MIDI medium (rec.music.synth?) You might even consider the option cranking the speed up (if the ST can support it.) You will want to support more than 16 nodes/physical network, so you wouldn't want to tie yourself to using a MIDI/channel designation for the address. That would confuse any musical instruments that are sharing the network, and you would probably turn the musical community off to networking. Perhaps reserving a well-known channel (say, 15? [any objections]) for 'MIDI nets' will make it easier for implementation to interoperate. Support for other MIDI capable machines (IBM PC, Amiga, Mac (even though it already has Appletalk), and even the venerable Apple ][ will help this become a reasonable thing to do.) You will want to build some kind of gateway, so that your net can be interconnected with other networks. Machines with MIDI Thru capability will be prizedfor the ability to provide easy wiretapping capability. The KA9Q package is probably the best starting place for the guts of all this, then just add a MIDI driver to it. Truly Free networking (except for the (passive) cables) would be another point in Atari's favor. You might even be able to use something like Apple's MIDI interface to hook up Appletalk-only laserwriters, if you stuffed the bits into in the right fashion. Good luck. (perhaps my proposal for MIDI TCP/IP encapsulation will appear on this forum shortly.) -- - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: ralphw@ius3.cs.cmu.edu Phone:(412) CMU-BUGS Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA "You can do what you want with my computer, but leave me alone!8-)"