serial cards for non serial Macs?

[part12studios]

Well considering the card proudly has the year 1999 stamped on it in the picture and I believe the Quicksilver came out in 2001, I have to assume it was made before the computer came out. The modem card I have in my Mac looks identical to the one in my sawtooth.

Square hole rectangle peg :-)


I can tell though looking at my sawtooth that this Southport would fit fine in that computer. The PSU wiring isn’t the same configuration as the Quicksilver.

The modem port on the motherboard definitely looks compatible it’s just a slight design flaw.
Maybe in 2001 and beyond they were still use an old 1999 printed cards? It’s possible but doubtful. They probably just came out with later models of the card to Support newer models and this is just an old batch. 

I have to pay for the return shipping to get a refund, but at least anyone in the future knows to confirm that the card is physically compatible with their particular Mac not just based on CPU alone.

Since I got the media 100 card working in my quicksilver, I guess I could slap OS9 back on sawtooth and install the card and test software with it before I return it. I suppose that would answer some questions, however ultimately it’s not a solution and I’m not sure if I’ll have time this weekend but i will try

[part12studios]

Hey so it took a few weeks and a pandemic to get things tested out..  but to be fair i've gotten a hell of a lot of stuff done in this time.. (fixing up a 12" powerbook, working on a pachinko machine, two reel to reels working, testing out various external hard drives and floppy disks / software from the Museum).. btw, be sure to check out my post regarding disks / images I found regarding that in the other post, before i format the drives to make space for new purposes. 

..just not regarding the serial testing with the Keyspan Pro card (ironically I found a free one at the Mac Museum allowing me to return the other to the most excellent Fdb)..  woot.

So regarding OMS, it looks like it's working well so far.  I do have one question though..  with OMS.. it feels like (and maybe i'm just not seeing it right) maybe OMS only supports 16 midi channels collectively?  Or does it also still support 16 midi channels per OUT as FreeMIDI does via USB? 

When I had two separate devices that I added and I believe appear in their own respective out/in ports seemed to complain that both were set to channel 1.. so i shifted them to separate midi channels and all seemed well.

I can work within those constraints, but kinda hoping its not the case still.

I have the MTP networked two together so I should have 16 in / out..  and taking the MIDI Express (USB) out of the equation.   but it's super important to know if I need to approach OMS as 16 midi channgels total or if it's possible to have up to 128 ins / outs like FreeMIDI can (i know transmitting on that many channels is technically not possible without trouble with data flow and an extreme, but it was nice to be able to exceed 16 channels even if just for mapping but not ever actually expect to use every one of those devices on every one of those channels in real time..

[IIO]

why would you think OMS support only 16 channels?

we dont know the exact limit, but there are interfaces with 10 ports whose driver support up to 4 or even 8 devices, that alone is far over 1000 channels, so dont worry.

[part12studios]

ok good to know.  what the system was telling me felt like it was not seeing two separate devices on two separate IN/OUT ports.. but i'll tinker more with it knowing that it is possible.  seeing that it's serial, i wasn't sure if there might be some greater data constraints possibly.. 

I'm just glad to see it's genuinely talking over the keyspan to two separate devices.  doing some initial sanity checks before i get deep into this because i'm going to have to rewire a number of midi devices and it's a mess of cables in there so i want to only do it once!

[IIO]

right after installation you should see 2 IAC buses and quicktime musical instruments, which makes already 3 ports of 16 channels each.

[GaryN]

So regarding OMS, it looks like it's working well so far.  I do have one question though..  with OMS.. it feels like (and maybe i'm just not seeing it right) maybe OMS only supports 16 midi channels collectively?  Or does it also still support 16 midi channels per OUT as FreeMIDI does via USB? 

You confusing a couple of things. Every MIDI cable (as in 5-pin DIN) supports 16 MIDI channels.

OMS or FreeMIDI  "tags" MIDI data with an ID. You can have a huge pile of synthesizers. On each MTP MIDI port you can have as many as 16 - each set to a different channel. 8 ports X 16 Channels = 128 synths that ALL appear in a huge OMS setup diagram. Send a note-ON to any one of them and OMS and your MTP together make sure it gets to the correct synth. Can you really have 128 synths/devices on one MTP? Yes. Why? Because you don't use them all simultaneously.

You need to "rename" stuff in your head. Think of synths, modules etc as "Instruments". Yes that's weird if you're using MIDI to switch a MIDIverb or something, but generally, they're instruments.
Think of your MTPs as "Interfaces" - that's what they are and what they do.
That leaves "devices" as any other little splitter, doo-dads whatever that are NOT instruments or interfaces. The Keyspan adapter is a device.
Those are the conventions OMS, FreeMIDI and everybody else uses.

[part12studios]

yes a midi cable can support 16 channels..  i just wanted to be certain that serial based devices could handle the full 8 in / 8 out (128 individual midi channels technically, but almost certainly you'd experience midi lag if you tried to control 128 midi devices at once with notes / info going to all of them in realtime!).  it would seem it must..  but when it didn't for me i had to back up and make sure..

and this questioning isn't on my lack of MIDI understanding, but lack of experience with OSM.   So far my experience with this actual hardware / software.. was something different than i would have expected if it behaved as it does with USB..  the picture as configured indicated to me that each had it's own IN and OUT in the OMS configuration screen.. yet if both were on channel 1.. it complained that they were overlapping.. (it told me this, not my lack of trying) that seemed odd..  they are physically each going into and out of their own MIDI ports. If each has it's own dedicated MIDI path I'd think they could both be set to MIDI 1..    This is how many of my devices were setup when i was using them (same hardware, just usb instead of serial) would allow me to do it that way via FreeMIDI. 

But yea that's cool.  That's how I approached them with FreeMIDI.. it just hit a surprise snag when the two devices were conflicting and before i brought the whole gang over (some devices are still on my MIDI Express which is pure USB)..  maybe there is some OMS setting i'm overlooking that somehow thinks the devices are sharing the same 16 midi channels?  or maybe something is wrong.

I will say so far so good other than that snag..  obviously i have more gear to configrue and test, but the DW8000 seemed to get the MIDI Clock signal without drama..  i was finding situations when using USB that it felt like the DW8000 was not always reliably getting MIDI clock when I would start playing which was annoying to say the least..  but serial is good so far

[part12studios]

and i did btw see what was going on looking closer.  the ports were ok..  but apparently it was bitching about devices (on different ports) having the same sysex id, which is more specialized than i need at this point.  so i just ignored the warning messages there.. 



i like the visual representation better with freeMIDI but i got it working well.  looking forward to putting it to good use.

Also be thanks to you all for your insight and encouragement.       Would have been much tougher without this awesome community. 

Sincerely,
Caleb