Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!PEDEV!rogerson
From: rogerson@PEDEV.Columbia.NCR.COM (Dale Rogerson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: MIDI for Windows
Message-ID: <2927@PEDEV.Columbia.NCR.COM>
Date: 21 Feb 90 15:21:46 GMT
References: <1990Feb19.205639.15983@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: rogerson@PEDEV.Columbia.NCR.COM (Dale Rogerson)
Organization: NCR Corp., Engineering & Manufacturing - Columbia, SC
Lines: 61

In article <1990Feb19.205639.15983@chinet.chi.il.us> patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree) writes:
>Hey one and all.  I've got a customer here that wants to develop apps
>for MIDI in Windows.  Problem is, what sort of device drivers are there
>available?  He's got a Roland MPU-401 and has called Roland (no luck,
>they say they've trashed the project).  He's called the companies that
>write MPU-401 software and they've basically told him that they won't sell
>the driver or tell him how they developed it.
>
>Sooooo, would anyone out there have an mpu-401 driver that they've developed
>and/or obtained?  If the price was right I'm sure these guys would pay
>money for such a thing.

	I have been meaning to post a message on this topic for some time.
	I am also interested in writting MIDI apps for Windows since I
	feel that "multi-tasking" and data-sharing features of Windows would be 
	ideal for running MIDI equipment.  Picture having the best sequencer,
	editor, and printing programs all running at the same type and using
	similar interfaces and sharing data, but all from different companies.

	However, before this dream can become a reality, we need a MIDI
	software standard.  One of the reasons Windows is supposed to be
	desirable is that it should shield the developer from the hardware
	of the system.  You do not need to know what display the system
	has (only its capablities) so why should you have to know which
	MIDI card is in the system.  I would like to avoid the problems  
	currently found in the MS-DOS MIDI market where your card has to
	be of certain type to run certain software and each manufactorer
	must make his card compatible with someone else.  This is just
	not the way things should work in the 90s. 

	What I am proposing is the development of a standard software interface
	to the MIDI interface spec.  This standard software interface would 
	then be implemented with DLLs.  The user would only have to have the
	correct DLL for his card and any software would work with it.  Windows
	was really designed to do things like this.

	Now the problem is - Who is going to develop this software standard.
	I would think that the best people would be the developers of MIDI 
	software since they know how MIDI works.  However,  getting PC
	software manufactorers to work together on something may be impossible.
	I do not think Microsoft will do it anytime soon (although I did
	hear that Windows 3.0 had such a beast :-) and would probably not
	do it right (or everyone would at least complain about it).  I don't
	think Roland would like this idea since it would remove the standard
	that they set, but then how many people are buying their MIDI cards
	instead of a clone. 

	Maybe we should start a project to develop such a beast ourselves and
	release it to the Public Domain.  There is not that much midi stuff out
	for Windows.  Does anybody have a list of MIDI software which runs 
	under Windows?  I only know of M/pc.  If a PD standard was released
	in the near future and half-way worked, it might get used by default.

	Just imagine having some "musical objects" defined in Actor with which
	you could compose/program your music interactively.  It really has some
	interesting possiblities.

	Any comments or sugestions?	

	-----Dale
		Rogerson-----