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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 25th Jan 2019, 4:15 pm   #21
ColinTheAmpMan1
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Default Re: Atari ST

I have an Atari STe which I did a bit of upgrading to probably around twenty-some years ago. I upgraded the memory, added an external hard-disk drive and fitted a 1.44 MB floppy drive as well. Fitting the floppy, as I recall, required some modification of the plastic case to accommodate the slightly different front of the 1.44 MB drive and some other messing about with the bus connector (which I can't recall the details of). If I can find the details of this (I rarely throw anything away), I will let you know.

I originally bought it for its MIDI ports and the fact that Cubase was an excellent bit of sequencer software that ran on the Atari.

Colin.
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Old 25th Jan 2019, 6:53 pm   #22
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Atari ST

I still use mine for that purely at the hobby level, but anecdotally there are still quite a few Atari STs in serious use right now as MIDI sequencers because they are so good at that job.

I'd be interested to know which TOS your machine has for it to be working natively with a 1.44MB drive, unless the drive is wired to look / work like a 720K drive.
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Old 26th Jan 2019, 7:55 pm   #23
Paulus.d
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Default Re: Atari ST

The usb to midi I have comes up in the device manager but no inputs or outputs are registered by the devices LEDS or Cubase... the red power light is on and drivers are installed..
Paul
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Old 26th Jan 2019, 8:51 pm   #24
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Atari ST

Right, if memory serves me correctly the plugs on these cables are marked the opposite way around to the way you might expect.

IN on the plug on the cable means that it is the MIDI IN for the interface, and therefore needs to be plugged into the MIDI OUT on the connected device.

OUT on the plug on the cable means that it is the MIDI OUT of the interface and should be plugged into the MIDI IN of the connected device.

Of course, this only applies to my cable, it may not apply to yours.

Disregarding Hatari / Cubase for the time being do you have any other native Windows MIDI application which you can try to see if that can detect and use the cable?

You could try MIDIOX for example, it is a general purpose MIDI toolkit program which may prove useful in troubleshooting your MIDI cable independently of Hatari, which may need specific tweaks to get it to see the interface. If MIDIOX can see your cable and use it then you are looking at a 'Hatari for Windows' MIDI problem.

http://www.midiox.com/

I asked about MIDI support in the Windows version of Hatari over at atari-forum and the response I got was that it would support whatever devices were supported in the 'portmidi' library. I don't know if this means you would have to compile Hatari for Windows yourself and include that library in the build, or whether someone has already produced a Windows 'binary' which includes this modification, since Windows users expect software to be supplied ready-to-run.

Part of the problem is that Hatari for Windows is not directly supported by the original devs, who wrote it for Linux: But it is open-source, and I think the MIDI for Windows side of things has been added by someone else.
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Old 27th Jan 2019, 12:40 pm   #25
Paulus.d
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Default Re: Atari ST

Tried several different setups today, STEEM works on my laptop and pentium 4 tower machine and will run Cubase 2 and sequencer one....
The tower wont output MIdi through my old Gravis MIDI adapter .....
Paul
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Old 28th Jan 2019, 2:04 am   #26
SiriusHardware
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And the laptop, with the USB cable?

Unfortunately I don't know STEEM at all, nothing against it, it just so happens that Hatari was the first emulator I tried and became familiar with so I stuck with it.

However the fact that neither Hatari (presumably) nor Steem can use your Gravis MIDI adaptor - is that part of a soundcard with a 15 way sub-D game port? - leads me to ask again: Do you have any native Windows MIDI application which can see / use the MIDI interfaces you have? You need to prove that at least one of your interfaces is working with a Windows MIDI program otherwise you can't know for certain whether you have a Windows MIDI problem or an emulator MIDI problem.
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Old 28th Jan 2019, 11:19 am   #27
Paulus.d
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Default Re: Atari ST

Okay …. will test that out
Paul
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Old 28th Jan 2019, 12:09 pm   #28
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Atari ST

After a further exchange with the (Linux) devs over on atari-forum one of them pulled down the current mainstream build of Hatari for Windows and found that it does NOT appear to contain the 'portmidi' patch which is needed for the Windows version to work with MIDI.

He pointed me to another guy, a Norwegian, who has recently stated an intention of maintaining his own build of Hatari for Windows with portmidi included. However, it's not clear whether he got around to that yet.

I'm sorry to say, therefore, that for the time being your best bet for MIDI support in Hatari is to run the Linux version, where I can say from experience that it works well. It may be that STEEM for Windows is further on in this regard and just needs some obscure setting tweaked, I just don't know.

The late arrival of MIDI support in Atari ST emulators is quite surprising really: An Atari ST without MIDI is like a Ferrari which isn't red, just.... wrong.
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Old 28th Jan 2019, 2:17 pm   #29
Paulus.d
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Yes …. it was the MIDI support that was the keystone for the Atari's popularity... and my main reason for getting it repaired.
One thing I have found is a way of getting hold of the software.....now just need a method to get the .ST files onto 720K floppies!
Paul
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Old 28th Jan 2019, 2:33 pm   #30
SiriusHardware
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You can also do that with a Linux machine which has a floppy drive, using the built in Linux 'DD' command. It probably works best if the discs are 'real' 720K floppies like the ones emeritus offered, earlier on in this thread.
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Old 28th Jan 2019, 4:21 pm   #31
Paulus.d
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Default Re: Atari ST

emeritus is kindly sending me some disks....
paul
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Old 13th Jun 2019, 5:39 am   #32
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Default Re: Atari ST

Quote:
Originally Posted by SiriusHardware View Post

If you just want to run Atari ST MIDI sequencer software like Cubase 2, the current version (V2.1.0) of the 'Hatari' ST emulator for Linux computers works very well with a typical USB to 5-DIN midi cable. I sometimes use that setup rather than drag out and set up all the components of my real ST systems.
Cubase on the ST was rock solid (at least from a ticks point of view). As soon as it ported to the PC the timing went out of the window and I always blamed that on the beautiful and far thinking design of the ST and its built-in MIDI ports. Have you tried Steem? I've seen YT vids showing working installs of Cubase 2.0 including working MIDI i/o. I haven't tried it yet. Or is it wishful thinking of me to think that a MIDI information flowing through a USB MIDI adapter flowing through Windows 8 flowing through an ST emulator flowing through a hacked copy of C2.0 could be any better.

Yes to clicky Atari forum BTW :-(

Rich
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Old 13th Jun 2019, 9:26 pm   #33
Goodmanguy
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Default Re: Atari ST

... and because I thought I could...

Here's Cubase 2.0 for the Atari, running in an Atari Emulator for Windows XP (Steem) with MIDI ports working fine and syncing to my ancient but lovely Akai DPS 24...

I thank u!

******************************1GcFUSoFMbCkKJmJ6
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Old 25th Jun 2019, 1:23 pm   #34
Paulus.d
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Default Re: Atari ST

After a while now , I decided to give up on the ST....the disk controller chip seems to be dead as a real floppy and new cable got some success …..
Instead I got hold of a Raspberry PI 3b to play with …
As for MIDI, a quick refurbish of my old ibook, and garageband is running nicely...
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