Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mandrill!neoucom!wtm From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: MIDIMAZE/other uses..was RE: Amiga and MIDI Summary: Why MIDI for the MIDIMAZE on the Atari? (speculations) Keywords: MIDI Amiga Atari ST Message-ID: <844@neoucom.UUCP> Date: 13 Dec 87 16:39:25 GMT References: <447@nuchat.UUCP> <32160@auc.UUCP> <528@otto.COM> <4694@well.UUCP> Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Lines: 24 I'm not cross-posting this to the Atari Group since they seem to have an unprecedented ability to send my mailbox into a core meltdown. 1. Can the ST's serail port hack high baud rates? Since the MIDI specification is 32.5K buad, that makes it attractive if the RS232 serial port is limited to 9600. The Amiga serial port can operate atastronomical baud rates to something over 200K baud. Never mind that there ain't no way software is going to keep up with that and that you'd have to keep cabling pretty short. 2. Midi cables [if you look around] are cheaper than RS232 cables. 3. Midi cables are Unisex, thus making them less error prone to attach. Good to keep things simple for the game-oriented crowd. [applies equally to Amiga and ST] :-) 4. Marketing appeal. Using the Midi port differentiates the product from the rest of the crowd, even if use of the Midi opposed to something else isn't significant. This dsicussion is eveidence of that. --Bill