Motu Tells Customer To Stick Serial Cable Up..., ...well, not into a g4Port. Options

[Levon River]

Just got word that MOTU is abandoning all MOTU serial port MIDI hardware owners as far as OS X goes. As far as MOTU is concerned, if you own a MOTU serial interface MIDI device, you can take your serial cable and shove it up...well, into a PC, maybe?

Got this from a friend who is stuck with a $400.00 paperweight with a pretty blue unicorn logo on it, currently doing battle with MOTU. The unit works just *fine* under OS 9.x, so it ain't the serial card, and it ain't the hardware. MOTU is just abandoning all support for their entire serial line apparently, at least as far as Mac OS X. I'll try to get more details as the saga drags on.

Pathetic.

[Levon River]

It has nothing to do with the age of the computer.

There are several inexpensive serial port cards for the newer Macs, like Griffin Technology's g4Port, which plugs into the modem slot. My friend has an 867 G4 with a g4Port. That's the point: people who have invested in MOTU's line of serial MIDI devices (which is ALL they sold up until, I believe, just last year--maybe in 2000 is when their first USB device came out) are all being thrown to the dogs.

You can be as understanding as you want to be. Personally, I consider it absolutely criminal to bank people's money for a relatively high-end product and then willfully render it obsolete. You'll notice (if you go an look) that they don't get around to mentioning this anywhere on their website. They must be really proud of it themselves.