Way back before USB, joysticks had a DIN-25 connector that was identical to the MIDInetwork connector.
I blindly plugged my brand new MS Force Feedback joystick into the MIDInetwork port behind my miditower (yes I’m that old) and watched the magic smoke rise out of the joystick. That was not a good day to learn about plugs. The network carries 50 volts or something. Stick wasn’t happy.
Strange. I always thought they were the exact same port. Because most of the time you would need a sound card to plug in a joystick. And nowadays I can’t use my MS Force Feedback because all the USB adaptors don’t implement all of the MIDI stuff the joystick needs to run the force feedback.
Oh you are right, I misremembered: what actually happened was that I was indeed going for the MIDI port of my SoundBlaster card but found a matching socket in my networrk card!
Way back before USB, joysticks had a DIN-25 connector that was identical to the
MIDInetwork connector.I blindly plugged my brand new MS Force Feedback joystick into the
MIDInetwork port behind my miditower (yes I’m that old) and watched the magic smoke rise out of the joystick. That was not a good day to learn about plugs. The network carries 50 volts or something. Stick wasn’t happy.edit: corrections! Here’s a photo of the network card: https://i.imgur.com/fBJixkM.png
Strange. I always thought they were the exact same port. Because most of the time you would need a sound card to plug in a joystick. And nowadays I can’t use my MS Force Feedback because all the USB adaptors don’t implement all of the MIDI stuff the joystick needs to run the force feedback.
Oh you are right, I misremembered: what actually happened was that I was indeed going for the MIDI port of my SoundBlaster card but found a matching socket in my networrk card!
I will update my comment to correct this.