I originally became a Windows Mobile device user due to a simple need to reduce the mobility size and weight when connecting to a MIDI capable device. In the 1980's, synthesizer based music was a huge rage with "New Wave" utilizing "looped rhythm patterns" and electronic sounds in music creation. Synthesizers by themselves did not have the necessary memory or control to create and save complex compositions. My original Yamaha keyboard was great in that it allowed me access to over 100 different sounds plus rhythm patterns. Unfortunately there was no method to save my own sound, patterns or whole compositions for later use. This is where a MIDI interface attached to a PC allowed me to save and retrieve my compositions to be modified later. I originally had a powerful PC for MIDI use but that limited my mobility and the ability to be creative anywhere.

In the early 1990's I switched to a laptop PC and connected a smaller MIDI keyboard controller. For those not familiar with MIDI controller keyboards, a controller is basically a keyboard which has the standard keys with a few control buttons only. The keyboard by itself does not have any sound producing circuitry built in. The sound is produced by the sound card contained in the PC and accessed via the MIDI interface. This was a truly liberating experience since I was no longer tied to the location of the PC to compose and jam. I could now take the laptop and MIDI keyboard with me anywhere. The computer and keyboard were both lighter but still posed an issue of size. Composing simple rhythm patterns or playing MIDI tracks on a laptop eventually became a tiresome process.

In the late 1990's with PDA's becoming available, I figured a PDA could be a good substitute to a laptop PC. The size of the PDA was attractive but also the instant ON feature was another key factor. No 2 – 3 minute load times of the OS before I was able to start the music software. All that was missing was a MIDI interface for the PDA and the appropriate software. I figured someone would come up with a combination in short order. Over a year passed and no MIDI hardware or music composition based software was available for the Palm Pilot or the Windows CE 1.X devices. When Windows CE v2.0 was announced by Microsoft, the specifications listed MIDI support as one of the features. This prompted me to jump on board with a Microsoft PDA. At the time, Palm did not have any MIDI support in the operating system or really any sound processing capabilities. I found a great deal for an HP-360 LX which contained Windows CE 2.0. I thought I was good to go but a couple of things were still missing.

1: A MIDI interface for the HP-360 LX
2: MIDI capable software for the HP-360 LX

None of these products existed for the handheld device or any mobile device yet but with my programming knowledge and experience with serial based MIDI interfaces on the PC, I could create something. Further investigation revealed that the MIDI support in Windows CE V2.0 was in the operating system that was geared towards an embedded X86 desktop and not available in the H/PC version of Windows CE contained on my HP-360 LX. Looking at the H/PC, the HP-360 LX had a standard PC serial interface and only certain baud rates were supported.(300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 28.800, 33600 etc...) No 31250 Baud. This is why even on the PC, you required an actual MIDI interface, At least for me I had access to a standard serial based MIDI interface.. After some extended work, I was unable to create a working setup for the HP-360 LX, I was however able to create one for the iPaq 3650 series later on. The product was sold as the MPort MIDI interface and allowed me to take a large collection of MIDI files for playback on a MIDI capable keyboard using a simple MIDI player program.

This still left the problem of MIDI input for sequencing and for simple MIDI recording. Numerous issues, like the limited memory, short battery life and the MIDI interface not having a power source of its own made the short battery life even shorter. The chances of losing all your work due to the low battery level was a big concern at the time too. In the end, the project and the MIDI interface was discontinued. During this time, I was also involved in various mobility development projects. I am still involved in mobility based software development thus I have upgraded over time from the HP-360 LX to the i-Mate Jasjar and other devices. Also I have gotten involved with the MS Smartphone side of Windows Mobile.

Now with Windows Mobile V6.0 running with more power, speed, memory and having the all important persistent memory opens the doors again to the possibility of starting this MIDI project again. We may already have access to a small enough computer system now that can sit on top of a MIDI keyboard. The unit I am referring to is the OQO computer system. I have not fully investigated this route yet but the latest OQO runs Windows XP or Windows Vista and comes with a standard USB 2.0 port thus should be able to connect to a USB based MIDI interface and run existing Windows based professional MIDI software. If anyone is currently using a OQO for MIDI purposes, I would like to hear about your experience.