Hi, folks!

Albert de Boer wrote about trying to get a MIDI Out port for his
laptop computer.

Well, I do all of my work (that is, my musical, "non-work", work!) on a
Hitachi laptop computer, including a lot of MIDI work. I went through
something like what Mr. de Boer is going through now, including long
holds while trying to talk to Hitachi tech "support", etc. The answer,
so far as I was able to determine, is that you can't get a MIDI port
installed, at least at a reasonable price, on a laptop. What you need
is a MIDI interface, which is a separate box. You can get them for the
parallel port (normally used as the printer port), the serial port
(normally used for modem connection), and now for the USB port. If I
had to do this again, I would have gotten one for the USB port, because
I never use this port for anything. Of course, I got one on Ebay for
the parallel port, from a fellow who was sick and tired of having to
reboot the computer every time he wanted to switch from having the
printer connected to the parallel port to having the MIDI interface
connected to the parallel port. By now, I've gotten used to THAT
inconvenience, but, as I said, for minimum inconvenience, look for a
MIDI interface that uses a port that you don't intend to use for
anything else!

Anyway, my MIDI interface is a Portman 2X4 PC Parallel Port MIDI
interface from MIDIMan.  As the name implies, it has 4 MIDI out ports
and 2 MIDI in ports. It's a little box about 6" X 4" X 1 1/4" and it
cost me about $80 (used). There are much smaller ones, extremely
portable, available, especially intended for laptop computers. Do a
web search on the exact phrase: "MIDI interface"
and you'll get a feel for the variety of options and manufacturers.

Hope this is a bit helpful!

Best regards,
Bob Pinsker
San Diego, CA