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Laptop Computer With MIDI-Out Port
By Johan Liljencrants

Albert de Boer tried without any success to find a laptop computer
that has a MIDI-out port to feed electronic files to his PowerRoll
(MMD 2000.03.22.11).  I am going to face the same problem with my organ
project and have deposited an old DOS operated type PC-AT laptop on my
shelf for the purpose.

Just to play an extant file (as opposed to edit it in a modern manner),
in hardware you need no more than that plus an adapter between the
computer serial port, 25- or 9-pin D-sub connector, and the MIDI 5
socket DIN connector.  MIDI uses conventional serial communication
ports.  Historically it emerged with the early Macintosh computers
which as a by-product defined the odd 31.25 kHz MIDI clock rate.

The problem is rather with the software side.  To execute, what you
need is a sequencer program to read and interpret the MIDI file and
send its events at the proper times.  As I see it the missing link is
only a driver to set up the proper clock rate in the serial chip and to
handle the communication.  It used to be fairly straightforward to
write such a thing in the old DOS times, I guess much worse in, for
instance, a Windows environment.  No help to be expected from IBM or
Microsoft that want to sell their new products.

Anybody knows of existing such drivers?

Johan Liljencrants


(Message sent Sun 26 Mar 2000, 19:03:51 GMT, from time zone GMT+0200.)

Key Words in Subject:  Computer, Laptop, MIDI-Out, Port

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