I must admit to not having much experience with MIDI on Amiga; does AmigaOS support serial port MIDI, such that offered in MIDI modules like the SC-88Pro? If so, is there any possibility that AmigaOS 4 will be able to use such devices, even if soundcard MIDI won't be supported?

@Fancia

Hi!

I got a MIDI device, which goes in the serial port of a "classic" Amiga. It's called "CREATIVE SOUND SYSTEMS, MIDI EXPANDER ME 4", so it is possible. It got one IN, one THRU and four OUT ports.

I don't know about AmigaOS4 yet, but I'll think, serial MIDI will be supported at one point. This is one area, I myself is very interested in, as I do MIDI music and would like to continue doing so using an Amiga computer.

Hope it'll help you a little.
Sincerely
John.

@Geomol

Ah, that sounds promising. :3 However, the device I have is a bit different. It doesn't connect to the serial port to provide MIDI ports for other devices, it *is* a MIDI synth; it's able to use the serial port instead of MIDI ports if the computer supports it.

@Fancia

Actually I'm interested in the MIDI capability of OS4 as well. How do we go about asking Hyperion...

On the other hand, if it's there it's there, if it isn't it probably will be eventually.

@csirac

The thing is that CAMD is partly in 68k asm and can't easily be ported. CAMD also has some weird requirements on the CAMD drivers having a piece of 68k asm at the start, so that's going to pose problems too. The serial port of the A1 (or any current PC) can't handle the MIDI baudrate, so the only options are gameport or USB. All in all, it will take some time to solve these issues. I still have to look into it.

Davy

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Audio Evolution
http://www.audio-evolution.com

@DaveAE

Seeing as you're posting in this thread. How does AE3 run under OS4? I will be buying AE4 but until its available I will be running AE3 :)

Cheers

Lewis

_________________
If you don't know what you need to know by the time you need to know it then its not worth knowing

@DaveAE

Oh, all right; I'll just have to wait, then. I take it, then, that no serial port devices will work on AmigaOS 4 in PPC, even those that *can* work at the PC/A1 baud rate (like my SC-88Pro)?

@Rassilon

To be honest, I don't know. But AE4 will be available as soon as OS4 gets out, at least, that's the plan, so you don't have to wait that long.

Thanks for your continued interest!

Davy

_________________
Audio Evolution
http://www.audio-evolution.com

@Fancia

Oh, now I see. Yes, we'll have to support those at some point indeed. The main problem is connecting CAMD to the drivers though. I need MIDI too for AE4, so it will get there eventually, but maybe not for the initial release. Perhaps with a boing-bag.

Davy

_________________
Audio Evolution
http://www.audio-evolution.com

@DaveAE

Oh, all right. :3 I'll look forward to when it comes, then! Is gameport MIDI planned as well, out of curiosity? I'd be interested in using my MIDI-only MT-32 in OS 4, too, or my SC-88Pro via gameport.
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions!

Quote:

I got a MIDI device, which goes in the serial port of a "classic" Amiga. It's called "CREATIVE SOUND SYSTEMS, MIDI EXPANDER ME 4", so it is possible. It got one IN, one THRU and four OUT ports.

The Classic Amiga hardware supported a baud rate of 31250, the same MIDI uses (as I recall), so it made it relatively easy to turn the Amiga's serial port into a MIDI port. Unfortunately, modern computer systems do not support this "non-standard" baud rate and therefore it's not possible to use the serial port for MIDI.

_________________
- Joshua B. Helm
Forefront Technologies, Inc.

@DaveAE

I think gameport-midi would be best option to support first.
USB midi adapters are quite expensive compared to gameport ones.

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OS4 on X5000 / Peg2 / mA1

@densho

Absolutely, gameport goes first. But right now, I'm too busy with audio...

Davy

_________________
Audio Evolution
http://www.audio-evolution.com

@DaveAE

Sounds good. :3 I'll look forward to it, whenever you have the time to make it. I'll be glad to wait.

@DaveAE

Well, gameport adapters are nice and everything, but my hardware project is a USB MIDI controller with (also) MIDI 1.0 IN/OUT/THRU ports. I'm only doing Linux drivers ATM (Windows DDK is evil!) and I would like to think that I would do an AOS4 driver, but 1) I can't afford an A1/OS4 'till next year after I graduate + get a job, and 2) sounds like there is no infrastructure in OS4 to start anyway.

- Paul

@Joshua
Quote:

Unfortunately, modern computer systems do not support this "non-standard" baud rate and therefore it's not possible to use the serial port for MIDI.

???

In Fancia's case, that would be incorrect.
It is true that the UART that's found on the A1/PC/Mac can't be set to 31250bps, but it only means that serial MIDI interfaces made for the Amiga Classic won't work.
Any serial MIDI _module_ made for PC and Mac can be used on the A1 with the right sofware.

It would be easy to make it play a few notes without any driver, just by dumping 10bit words on the serial port at 38400bps iirc.

_________________
AlexC's free OS4 software collection

AmigaOne XE/X1000/X5000/UAE-PPC OS4 laptop/X-10 Home Automation

@csirac

Well, as you probably know, gameport adapters aren't nice at all as they are not opto-isolated and don't come with MIDI thru. I have an Evolution UC-33 USB MIDI controller which has MIDI in/out ports too, so when CAMD works I can work on or test MIDI using USB. I'm very much in favour of using USB for MIDI, although it might cause more jitter in some cases.

Davy

_________________
Audio Evolution
http://www.audio-evolution.com

@DaveAE

To make matters worse.
Bars and Pipes can´t use any other port than the standard amiga serial port (i know since i destroyd my 1200 serial port, and had to use the surfsquirrel for surfing).
When I mailed him about this, he was thinking along the lines of a new midi in tool, where you could choose different inputs.
In that case you could use multiple ins by selecting different inputs on each "pipe".
But that isn´t a priority at the moment :(.

http://www.alfred-j-faust.de/indexeng.html

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Ralf.
Amigaone G4 XE / AOs4 beta update4
Post+1

@Ralf
Quote:

To make matters worse. Bars and Pipes can´t use any other port than the standard amiga serial port (i know since i destroyd my 1200 serial port, and had to use the surfsquirrel for surfing). When I mailed him about this, he was thinking along the lines of a new midi in tool, where you could choose different inputs.

Except Albert isn't the one porting it to OS4, I am. He already has his hands full with the Classic version and the Morphos port.
I was using BnP on the 4000 and now that I've replaced it with an A1, you can bet I'll make it work with MIDI on the A1, no matter what it takes.

Alex.

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AlexC's free OS4 software collection

AmigaOne XE/X1000/X5000/UAE-PPC OS4 laptop/X-10 Home Automation

@AmigAlex

Yesss.

If you know how happy you just made me.

Now i just want multichannel support for AHI, Drivers for the delta line sound cards and of course, you know what.

_________________
Ralf.
Amigaone G4 XE / AOs4 beta update4
Post+1