Serial to MIDI adapters are around - although you'd probably have better luck finding a design and building one yourself than finding a pre-made one. (The serial port being the wrong gender doesn't help things.)
The protocol itself is largely the same, but you need level conversion, and the baud rate is 31250bps. Not all UARTs can be programmed for that speed, so that's something TBD. Here's a circuit. It looks like it uses a MAX232 for level shifting and a 6N138 on the input side to make the current loop usable by the MAX. If you're just looking to transmit, you can skip the 6N138 and just use the MAX232 and associated support bits (caps and resistors.) Some other devices, such as certain models of Sound Canvas and a few varieties of Yamaha XG sound models actually have a serial port interface built right into the machine. So you could send MIDI data to one of those without needing the level conversion. The only issue is that I'm not sure if or how the serial port can be set to the correct baud rate. MIDI runs at 31250 bps. I'm not sure how the T100's UART is programmed at the machine level, so that could be a concern. One way around this might be to use an Arduino as a buffer - connect the Arduino and the computer with a simple MAX232 converter, then use the Arduino to send the actual MIDI messages through a MIDI shield. (Or just get the musical instrument shield with the on-board synth.) Tom Wilson wilso...@gmail.com (619)940-6311 K6ABZ On Sat, Mar 7, 2020 at 4:38 PM Hiraghm <hira...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I vaguely recall a few months back someone talking about some kind of > MIDI with their M100. > > I've got a Roland MT-32 and a couple PMA-5s, and I got to wondering how > I could interface them to my M100, then maybe write some MIDI > player/editor software. > > Just saw a video tutorial on YouTube where Bisqwit wrote a MIDI player > program for DOS in GW-BASIC. > > A serial port interface, assuming one could be built, would be fast > enough; iirc MIDI communicates at the same speed as HTerm. > > A parallel port interface might be more convenient, if possible... > > I've been reading recent threads about someone using the cassette > interface as a secondary display interface. I suppose maybe that could > be used, instead, too... > > Now I'm wondering if a MIDI keyboard could be interfaced via the bar > code reader port? > > If so... PMA-5 connected via serial, parallel or cassette port, MIDI > keyboard connected via barcode port, custom software... portable MIDI > DAW... > > So is this idea crazy? Impossible? Waste of time? > >
