🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan6.004823.11439@julian.uwo.ca>, wlsmith@valve.heart.rri.uwo.ca (Wayne Smith) writes:
|> In article <Jan05.224636.36025@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> millerje@CS.ColoState.EDU (Jeff Miller) writes:
|> >The best advice I can give you would be to go for a MPU401 
|> >compatible.  This way you won't be limited when it comes to support (many
|> >shareware/freeware MIDI sw supports nly the MPU 401 standard)
|> 
|> What is "MPU 401" compatability?
|> MIDI is a serial data transfer of 31.5 kbaud.  What "magic" does an MPU
|> 401 card do? Does it have a buffer? Does it have intelligence?  Has
|> anyone ever programmed it at a low level?  How many registers does it have?

It can run in dumb mode, or it can run in "smart" mode. I don't know much
about programming it, personally, but I do know that the smart mode was needed
back in the days of slow computers, and now it's not really necessary if you've
got a decently quick machine. However, the point about software availability
is a good one.

|> 
|> Are we talking about a card that has half the complexity and functionality
|> of an IDE hard/floppy controller, but at 5 times the price?
|> 
|> Is there a Popular Electronics article on building your own MPU-401 card?

Not that I've seen.  They did have an article on a kit by PAiA to make a dump
UART-based MIDI card, however they didn't have any Windows compatible drivers
at the time, so I got my money back and paid $80 (as opposed to about $60) for
a basic Music Quest PCMIDI card. It's not that expensive, and works well.

jds

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