Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology
Anders Borg writing about the fun and crazy world of mobile and Internet service technologies.
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Sunday, December 20, 2009
MIDI nostalgia
Continuing on the MIDI theme…
During 1989-1990 I developed a board and a code library for MIDI, and numerous applications that together formed a suite for all things MIDI, including a detailed MIDI analyzer, MIDI echo, sequencer control, rhythm tapper, MIDI event mapper, MIDI file player and analyzer, sysex sender and recorder, Korg M1 sysex analyzer, control change cycler (think of it as many extra LFOs), random note generator etc.
I’ve ported the library in full to the Arduino/Miduino SDK and I’m also porting some of the more interesting applications, for a quick development turn-around.
Not meaning to brag, but I surprised myself by the quality, completeness and re-usability of the code, especially considering it was a hobby project and nothing else. It’s also interesting to note how useful C code still is, as long as the applications don’t use much UI. Of course I had to strip out all UI code, as the Miduino board doesn’t have any UI to speak of, yet I’m considering adding an LCD (via I2C), so I can for instance use the board as a complete “bring it just in case” MIDI analyzer.
The first MIDI specification was published 1983, and MIDI shows signs of age when it comes to connectors, performance etc, but it’s still so easy to use, and generally complete from a protocol point-of-view, that most keyboards still ship with the original MIDI ports, 26 years later. Not many technologies have survived such a long time. Of course USB is taking over for communication with PCs, but for device-to-device communications original MIDI still rules, which indicates what I do now might not be a complete waste of time after all.
In any case I learn how to use microcontrollers, which is not a bad thing in this age of electronics in anything and everything, machine-to-machine communication (not the least mobile), continued miniaturization and decreasing of power consumption.
