tom@uwai.UUCP (05/16/85)
Several people have asked why Atari included the MIDI serial
ports on the soon-to-be introduced Atari ST. They asked "What for?"
I say: "Why not?"
The ST has two MIDI ports on the back, as defined in the MIDI
standards, to allow daisy-chaining of devices on the MIDI bus,
a ~31K baud serial link.
Although MIDI originated as a standard for communicating between
the latest breed of synthesizers and electronic instruments, it has
potential to become a low-speed local area network. All it takes
is a pair of DIN cords to connect two Ataris. Does that give anyone
any ideas?
The inclusion of MIDI opens up a whole new market for Atari.
Coupled with the music capabilities built-in the ST, it will soon
gain a reputation as a music machine.
(Readers of net.music.synth, close your eyes for this paragraph.)
MIDI provides a digital link between most new synthesizers, rhythm boxes,
sequencers, and even guitars. MIDI can transmit nearly all the
information a device can supply - for instance, the bus can relay
the details of playing a piece on a synthesizer - note values, length,
even the rate at which you hit the key, giving amplitude data - and
send them to any other device on the MIDI bus.
Also, MIDI devices can often map themselves onto another instrument.
For example, you can map your drum machine onto the lower section of
the keyboard of your synthesizer. Pressing those keys give drum sounds
now. (Net.music.synth, open your eyes now.)
MIDI will open up new areas in computer music for many people,
especially with cheaper interfaces like the Atari ST. No more will
computer music programs ask you to play the QWERTYUIOP scale to get
musical notes... Rather, imagine the strengths of music editors that
edit musical data in this form, and can play the results instantly.
It's not to hard to create a N-track recording studio, since MIDI can
handle 16 devices at once, in most configurations.
There are a few drawbacks in the Atari MIDI setup. The driver for
the port is not "smart," that is, the 68000 inside will have to do
more work to drive the port than comparable MIDI interfaces for
other computers. MIDI interfaces for other machines, for example, the
IBM PC, are separate cards in the ~$100-200 range, and carry their
own smarts, like the Roland MPU 401.
I work for Sight and Sound, Inc. We design software for MIDI
using the Roland MPU 401 interface. There are several other companies
in the USA that do this kind of software, but so far, the market has
been limited to professional musicians.
John Foust
(not sure what machine I'll be on this summer...)
posting from the account of
--
Tom Christiansen
University of Wisconsin
Computer Science Systems Lab
...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!uwvax!tom
tom@wisc-ai.arpa