Calculations & Complications

Introduction MIDI is a long established standard for transmitting messages about events that occur or should be triggered; typically in a musical context (hence Musical instrument digital interface). I say typically as MIDI has been used in various other contexts such as industrial machinery and lighting control. At it's core MIDI is a one way serial protocol. Throughtput, Latency & Jitter To begin with, I'll describe these three concepts in the abstract, and how they apply to MIDI. Throughput Throughput is a measure of the rate of data transmission; moreover if messages were transmitted as rapidly as possible, at what rate would they be received. Throughput is typically measure in bits per second (or some multiple, such as kilobits or megabits). Depending on the protocol not every bit transmitted forms a part of the message proper. In the case of traditional DIN MIDI, the bandwidth (the capacity of the link for throughput) is 31,250 bits per second (aka 31,250 baud, or 31....

From time to time I find myself doing calculations, thought experiments, or conveying my understanding on a subject. Sometimes this is done in a formal capacity, sometimes informal. This blog is a place for me to record (for posterity) the outcomes of such processes. Moreover, there is no real theme for the content, so much as a series of end to end stories, and pieces of information or reasoning about whatever is interesting me at the time.