OVERRIDING MIDI pt.II

[Don Tillman]

   Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 06:24:38 -0600
   From: Steve <daedalus at tezcat.com>
   >
   >   It has been mentioned that VLSI chip manufacturing is often used in
   >   synths, to where the MIDI interface and the synth's CPU are part of the
   >   same chip. I did not think of this. Good point.
   >
   >Why do you think this matters?

   I think his intention was the modding of existing synths to accept his
   hypothetical new protocol.  My view of this approach is that if you want to
   build a kangaroo, you don't start with a yak and then modify - you build
   fresh.

Very nice analogy.

My point, which I left completely blank in my zen-like posing of that
question, is that if you're gonna be modifying a synth for this new
interface you're certainly going to be modifying the software, and so
if the UART is on-chip, just don't use it, do writes to an output port
(parallel interface) or set the UART to a higher speed (serial
interface).

Either way, the on-board UART is not holding you back.

   >So I'm all for replacing MIDI, but there haven't been much in the way
   >of concrete proposals.

   What about a multiport MIDI interface *on the instrument*?  

I'm not sure what this means.

If you're saying that a synth should use this new interface in
addition to MIDI, well yeah sure, that's a marketing necessity.  And
it costs almost nothing.

   Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 10:30:40 -0500 (EST)
   From: Tony Clark <clark at andrews.edu>

   > >So I'm all for replacing MIDI, but there haven't been much in the way
   > >of concrete proposals.

      Well the USB idea is pretty darn interesting.  No, no one has posted a 
   concrete proposal for the data format for such an interface, but I 
   imagine that'll take some time.  Let some people tinker with it first and 
   see what they can actually get to "work", and then you'll see some 
   proposals start to filter through.

I hadn't heard USB mentioned in this conversation before.

Though I haven't studied up on USB yet, from what I've heard it's got
a lot of potential.  Details at http://www.usb.org/ .

   What I wouldn't mind seeing is just some extra lines on the MIDI 
   cable.  

Huh?  MIDI cables have three unused wires as it is!

  -- Don