>The address for ALSA is: > >alsa-project.org > >I cannot find any evidence that we would find a major benefit by looking >at ALSA, as(AFAIAA)it is a library for a low latency Linux sound card >implementation, and it is LGPL. I'm afraid the MIT liscense may start >biting us in the ass on this one, as Linux has a lot of resources >available, but very few in BSD or similar free liscenses. I believe MIDI >in Linux is covered by a /dev/midi, or something like that. This is what >I remember from the agonizing attempts at getting MIDI working over a year >ago. However, I can't possibly be conisidered an authority on this. I would rather look at it as an example of the not really as free as they would have you believe GPL biting us. :-) >MIDI is an exceedingly simple serial protocol, which is available for all >to observe and learn. I don't necessarily think it is the best idea to be >worrying about hardware drivers at this junture(just a thought). For one >thing, a great deal of MIDI interfaces these days are popping up in all >sorts of places, especially USB. You've probably noticed that I'm >rambling like mad at this point, and that is because I'm at a loss as to >where to begin. Is there a resource online with which I can observe the >MIDI api implementation in Beos? I can provide links/documentation for >the MIDI spec to all that may be interested. Where to begin? I would look at the BeBook. That and the MIDI spec. I would start by ignoring serial ports/USB all together and writing a MIDI parser for files. A second development track could use the existing (Be's) parser and load and play instrument files.