From: nick@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth
Subject: Re: MOTU Apparently Now hiring ex Radio Shack Employees for Tech Support
Date: 10 Apr 92 12:23:58 GMT
Organization: Friends of the Salter Duck
In-reply-to: JROSSI@EAGLE.AAMRL.WPAFB.AF.MIL's message of 9 Apr 92 16:14:00 GMT

In article <9204091616.AA16900@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> JROSSI@EAGLE.AAMRL.WPAFB.AF.MIL writes:

   Yep, it seems that by and large, peoplke affiliated
   with the Mac platform are technologically ignorant.

Sigh, and after fielding all those technical questions from you as well...

   The problem, I think, is that the interface (and the
   whole platform, for that matter) is so incredibly well conceived from a human
   factors standpoint, that nobody ever questions how the things work.

You do have a point here, in a fairly abstract sense. For example, I have
no idea how the Installer works - it's a tidy black box. However, I say
"abstract" because you haven't said what your specific complaint is with
the Mac or why the "closed" interface is a problem to you.

   Unfortunately, Steve Jobs did such a good job, apparently even
   the engineers and system developers have suddenly become amnesic as to how
   Macs actually function.

That's a non-sequitur. Tech. support guys have no excuse for not knowing
their area - agreed - but you'll find that anywhere, not just Macintosh -
and it's probably a case of diminishing returns. 99% of questions from
punters are simple ones with simple answers ("try turning it on") so having
someone highly trained for that last 1% isn't really worth it, I guess.

   Let me digress one further layer here before firing
   my main salvo at MOTU...

Oh, why not? I don't see what you're trying to prove with your hacker
credentials here, though.

   I mean, has any PC user out there ever actually asked 'how much
   PC should I buy?'.  I mean, the question may come up if we are talking about
   CAD/CAM or some other 1024x1025x24 bit video application where there are
   substantial gains in using a 486 over a 386.  But, I mean, we are talking
   MIDI here.  Were talking 325 asychronous Kbits/sec per MIDI cable.  How
   much computer do we need to cope with 31.25 Kbits/sec, come on.

And here you show your ignorance, John (and probably the hacker/PC
mentality) by trying to reason about the power of the hardware to
support your entire music development environment by looking at the
speed of MIDI transmissions. This doesn't follow at all.

   It seemed odd to
   me that the 030 is a true 32 bit processor yet the Classic-II and the new
   LC-II can be expanded in 16-bit memory block increments.  I tried to get
   information on why/how this was?

I thought I explained this?

   Hell,
   I wasn't exactly sure why I needed it but Nick, Adam, Carl, Joe, and Erikeur
   convinced me that it was the Mac to choose.

I intimated at the IIci, I believe, and I stand by that.

   I talked to a rather pleasant female type person
   who explained that Performer/MTP would work well with any of the new Macs
   but that If I wanted to implement the FAST mode on the MTPs (which Performer
   obviously supports), I should go with an IIsi as a minimum and with a IIci
   if I thought I would ever need the expansion capability.

Sounds fair to me.

   Now that I have the thing installed I find that the Mac MIDI interface (I'm
   not refering to the interface box, but the actual interface between the Mac
   and the box) is rediculous.

I admit to not liking the MTP DA interface that much (and its lack of
cooperation with MIDI Manager and OMS is a real hassle).

   Anybody contemplating 'upgrading' a PC, Amiga,
   or even an Atari to a Mac MIDI platform should pay close attention here.

Why? You don't go on to say anything concrete or specific.

   Of course, the FAST/1x rate allows the computer to send 
   the data at up to 4 times that rate (140 KHz MAX).  For the permenantly
   acid impaired, what this troubling news suggested is that, no matter what
   MOTU was suggesting, there was no way that the Mac could handle 32 independent
   MIDI streams.

Let me get this right: you want to handle 32 cables worth of full-density
MIDI traffic all at once. I make that around 1 megabps bandwidth, or
10 microseconds per byte. What sort of hardware did you have in mind that
could handle this (or MIDI application which would require it)? The whole
point is that MIDI is sparse, so you can multiplex 32 channels. Maybe the
serial bottleneck could be made faster, but I've run 4 cables of dense
traffic from my SE/30 without problems.

   What I had in mind was enquiring as to whether
   or not if the configuration of an MTP to each of the two (modem and printer)
   ports would actually double the throughput rate to the MTPs (i.e., if each
   MTP could be supplied data at a maximum of 140 Khz, thus doubling the ability
   of a Mac to communicate with the MTPs).  Well, I called...

OK, that's a fair question. I still don't know what you require this huge
bandwidth for, though. Can your PC deliver it?

   The male type person who answered the telephone at MOTU cheerfully greeted
   me with 'Mark of the Unicorn..Technical support, how can I help you?'.  I
   proceeded to try to explain the situation to him.  After going through the
   logic above a couple of times he informed me that I could attach an MTP to
   each of the serial ports, but he didn't see why I would want or need to.

To be honest, neither do I; I can't see why you need to sustain such
bandwidth.

   I started to get frustrated with his continual answering of my
   questions with assurances that I had nothing to worry about, that all was
   fine, and that MOTU would not lie to me.

OK, fair enough. As a customer, he should be able to reassure you about
these technical questions, rather than say "it'll be fine, sir, don't
worry."

   While behavior such as that might be commonly tolerated in the
   Mac world (which is suggested by my discussion with their tech support people),
   people with concerns about actually knowing how thier systems are functioning
   will not put up with it.

Try calling Roland, Ensoniq or Korg sometime with a similarly detailed
question.

   Now on to my contention that because of the idiocy involved with using the
   serial ports for communication with the MIDI interfaces, the Mac is the
   least suitable computer for complex MIDI applications.

Why is serial port use idiocy? The SCC's can run at 200Kbaud+ (and do for
AppleTalk) which is, what, 8 times full-density MIDI speeds. I hate to
think what power of CPU you'd need to deal with faster continuous throughput.


   Clearly, in a PC the Processor speed is the limiting
   factor in being able to address nMIDI cables.

You mean, you're complaining because the bottleneck is elsewhere? (Without
having demonstrated that there's actually a problem with it.)

   Why, the Mac world is 'serial port driven' is beyond me.

I still don't see a problem here. You want fast, go for SCSI/Ethernet
interfacing.

   It is very
   unfortunate that the Mac MIDI standard is so badly compromised by its
   reliance on serial ports which have a normal throughput only slightly better
   than MIDI itself.

More ignorance, John: the Mac MIDI standard (I presume you mean MIDI
Manager and OMS) is not at all reliant on the serial ports, and can
use NuBus hardware for Mac MIDI applications, at least in principle.
Nobody makes a NuBus MIDI interface to my knowledge; maybe because
nobody needs one? This equation of MIDI with serial ports shows your
PC hacker ignorance again.

Nick.
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