New To Midi, Can't get Keyboard and Reason 1 talking Options

Greetings serious music pros,

We have a Yamaha PSR 280 keyboard which we are trying to midi up to our G3. We are using Reason 1 and I am using OMS for midi connections. The trouble is we don't know what we are doing and things are not working.
Q.1 What do we have to do in Reason to talk to the keyboard.
Q2 The same question re OMS, how do we use it to set up midi.
Q3 And finally, the keyboard, a Yamaha PSR 280, cables - we have 2 midi connected to in and out on the keyboard and in and out on the Roland midi box. We have 1 serial cable connecting the midi box to the G3 via the printer port.

I guess what we need is a good tutorial. I have found a couple but they tend to assume some basic knowledge or prior music skills. We (my son and I) are both on a steep learning curve with music. He composes using Reason and I make online musical interfaces/instruments with Flash.

Platform; Mac beige G3 233, 224 RAM, 60 Gb HD, CD+Floppy, Lacie/Yamaha 4x4x16 burner, Microtek E6 scanner, Zip 100, ext modem.


Cheers, Barrie and Carl
ad hoc graphics

[kaboombahchuck]

I fully understand the learning curve comment, it is not steep, it's a friggin wall!
First off you have got to get the OMS working, after that all will be simple! Make shure that you have the latest version of OMS and the apropiate drivers. Then try and try again. It only took Me a year to get it to work, and I pray every day that I don't have to reformat! Follow the instructions, and do the studio test. I think that's where I finally got my break.
Also make shure that your midi cables are connected correctly. In to out, out to in.
Hopefully there will be someone else with more help that what I've given, but without accomplishing the OMS thing, you will get nowhere.
good luck

Thanks kaboombahchuck (amazing name!)

Your advice very welcome. We will struggle on and make copious notes.
I've heard by the way that OMS is not regarded too highly by some. We have the latest version and will persevere with it although I might try FreeMidi if things don't work out.

Best, Barrie and Carl

[damann]

freemidi is just an oms emulation really, but at least it's been updated a bit in the last couple of years.
i don't use either these days and am very happy about this situation.
in the near future macos will forever banish these two lame pieces of software to the history books. but then the beige g3 will probably become the weak link!
also, reason, although good, is only really used by pro's as an addition to a better all round sequencing package. in this case the only reason you need oms is for its' iac bus which is c*^p anyway.
peace, good luck...