Wolfgang Lonien <wolfgang(a)lonien.de> Just to pick a nit: Audio predates MIDI by about 30 years. Being out of reach I'll agree with, for sure!, but there were tube D/A converters being built in the late 50's at MIT (meaning the resistor ladder type guts, not any "audiophile" type of thing). Tom Stockham and the Soundstream were pre-MIDI, there were various things going on in Europe, and the Synclavier was doing sampling and resynthesis (not sampling playback as we know it) before MIDI. MIDI was '84, and coincides roughly with the release of the Ensoniq Mirage -- the first sampler for under $10,000, but there were a lot of expensive computer systems (standalone or general purpose) that knew something about audio. Cheers, Phil Mendelsohn -- Dept. of Mathematics, 342 Machray Hall U. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2 Office: 446 Machray Hall, 204-474-6470 http://www.rephil.org/ phil at rephil dot org