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| quote: | Originally posted by kitphillips
Often, MIDI is then run back out to modules. This could be done by setting up the keyboard to simply continue putting out midi on the midi ports, as most keyboards already do. |
First of all, MIDI is not just computers and keyboards. Outside the amateur production world, those account for maybe 5% of the total usage.
Even for just a keyboard, there are still all sorts of problems. The only times you tend to see multiple protocols supported on a single device are when the protocols are trivial to convert, like USB<->Serial, S/PDIF<->TOSLINK, VGA<->DVI, etc. You know that it's trivial because you can also buy a $10 adapter to do the conversion. When it's anything more complicated - like, say, the switch from parallel ports to USB on printers and scanners, or from PCI to PCI-E, or from RCA composite to HDMI, or from Compact Flash to Secure Digital, or from cassette to CD - it's not common at all to see crossover devices.
The crossover devices do exist, but think about it: the manufacturing period for these things was about 6 months in the computing and entertainment industries where the turnover rate (that is, time to obsolescence) is on the order of months if not weeks, and early adopters are plentiful because you're marketing to an audience of tens/hundreds of millions. And they were still expensive anyway. The audio industry moves at a glacial pace; crossover devices would have to be manufactured for years and years before anybody would be able to stop making the old stuff. And a lot of people probably still wouldn't buy them, because they'd see that the format wasn't widely supported anyway.
It's trivial to support multiple formats in software because code is effectively free. Hardware isn't. You have to pay for the circuitry and you also have to find space for the ports. That in turn increases the footprint of the device, so you not only have to pay for the additional electronics but also additional design and manufacturing. On an audio interface costing $1200, sure, it's pocket change, but on some inexpensive $50 MIDI device it's cost-prohibitive.
Everything about design and manufacturing seems simple when you're just the end user. Why can't Microsoft prevent those pesky blue screens? In reality it just isn't that simple.
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