midi-to-serial adapter

You should be able to buy something to do the job - I'm sure you can get Serial to Midi adapters for the Macs.

I made my own, cause I wanted to, and because it was less painful (at the time) than trying to find where to buy one from. The design was based on the work from Midi for the pilot though personally I don't recommend sucking power out of the Palm Pilot, nor power out of Midi cables…

The modified design has its own power source, and midi-thru as well. So far it has performed without problems.

• 4 x 2N2222 transistor
• 1 x 6N138 opto isolator
• 1 x IN4148 diode
• 1 x LED
• 10 x 220r resisitors
• 1 x 100K resistor
• 1 x 20K resistor
• 1 x 10K resistor
• 1 x 1K resistor
• 1 x 470uF elect capacitor
• 3 x DIN5 sockets
• 1 x DB9 socket

If you use the serial port on the Pilot for any length of time (for anything) then it sucks the batteries, and if you want to use the Pilot in real musical situations, ie bad lighting, then the Pilot's backlight will suck even more power. I'm going to have to make some sort of power adapter or try rechargable batteries.