fjo@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (frank.j.owen) (08/11/89)
ATTENTION : APPLE MIDI MANAGER AVAILIBLE NOW!!
I just got off the phone with a guy from Apple Computer, and he
gave me the latest scoop on the Apple Midi Manager Tools. First,
they ARE availible. You can get them from APDA. They are $30.
They were NOT listed in the recent APDA catalog due to the long
lead-time of the catalog, but if you phone and ask, they will know
what you are talking about. If you are a developer interested in
including any of Apple's code with your product, the licensing
fee is $100. (I don't know if this is per year or what. It's probably
similiar to the arrangement made with Macintalk licensing.) I think
the license also allows you to include the Midi Manager INIT with
your product.
What the APDA Midi Manager Tool kit includes:
1) The MIDI Manager INIT - you throw this into your
system folder like any other INIT. It installs the Midi
manager into your system. I presume these act as "ROM extensions".
2) A special serial port driver that enables the ports to be
"connected" to the Midi Manager.
3) Some sample applications that show you "how to use the Midi
Manager". 2 mentioned were a "mini-sequencer" and
an arpeggiator.
4) PatchBay - This is another application. It lets you graphically
patch and merge Midi data between serial ports and the
Midi Ins and Outs of applications that use the Midi Manager.
The guy I talked with (I think he wanted his name withheld, so I'll
just refer to him in this way) said that the reason for the long delay
in getting this out is that they have been working closely with the
major MIDI software houses (OpCode,MOTU,Passport et. al.) to iron out
potential problems. He stressed that this means we may have waited a
bit longer than expected, but we have a "rock-solid" product.
He also made it clear that Apple wants this to be the standard way of
interacting with MIDI on the Mac, and is therefore quite open to and even
encourage the distribution of public domain code "snippets" to places
like USENET and BBS's. I think this means that if you write some nifty
little MIDI filter (to give tranposition, keyboard splitting, I could
probably go on and on here) you are free to give it away without having
to worry about the licensing. Once you try to make money with it
though, I expect it'd be a different story.
Also, I THINK (I forgot to ask the Apple guy about this directly, so this
MAY NOT BE TRUE) that the Midi Manager Tools from APDA are in the same
class as System Software. That is, you can buy it for $30 and get the
nicely packaged kit, but I believe there is no restriction on redistributing
it, so you MAY be able to get a copy from someone who bought it.
--
Frank Owen (fjo@ttrdf) 312-982-2182
AT&T Bell Laboratories
5555 Touhy Ave., Skokie, IL 60077
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