Amiga Forever by Cloanto
 
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MIDI Support in Amiga Emulation

 

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Q: Can I use Amiga MIDI hardware and/or software on the PC?

 

DISCUSSION

A: The serial port of any Amiga configuration can be set to work as a normal serial port, or be redirected to any MIDI hardware supported by Windows. This makes it possible to run Amiga software like Bars & Pipes Pro in Amiga Forever.

To set an Amiga serial port to MIDI, right-click the title (e.g. Workbench 1.3 or Workbench 3.X), select Edit, then in the Configuration tab set the Serial option to MIDI. This is not enabled by default, as MIDI may interfere with some applications.

To set the Windows MIDI devices for Amiga titles where the serial port is set to MIDI, select Tools/Options from the menu, open the Emulation tab, and then set the desired "Windows MIDI Input" and "Windows MIDI Output" ports.

If MIDI does not appear to work, you may want to double-check whether the serial port in the title is set to MIDI, and whether the Windows MIDI device selection in the program options is as desired.

"Workbench 3.X" (listed in the Systems section of Amiga Forever) is the recommended high-end configuration both for installing and running Amiga software, and for data sharing with Windows.

In case you are tempted to connect original Amiga MIDI hardware to the PC, please consider that this is usually not possible. Older Amiga serial port-based MIDI hardware can in general not be used without additional modifications. This is because the Amiga provides +12V and -12V power on pins 9 and 10 (except on the Amiga 1000 model) of the DB-25 connector. These lines are used by most Amiga MIDI interfaces, but are not standard on serial ports in general, and are in general not used on the PC. It is however possible to connect MIDI devices to the PC MIDI connectors (usually on the sound board, or via USB), and, with the instructions provided here, to access these from Amiga software as if they were connected to the Amiga serial port.

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Article Information
Article ID: 13-107
Platform: Windows
Products: Amiga Forever
Additional Keywords: None
Last Update: 2022-03-22
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