A protocol that's stood the test of time.  Funnily enough, it more or less shares its birthday with the internet.
Great article on El Reg about its origins and technology:
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/19/midi_spec_1_is_30_happy_birthday_musical_instrument_digital_interface/
 
(Also features an awesome Bob Moog picture back in the days of CV and gate )

It is incredible that this standard still meets our needs so well.  Three decades is a millenium in technology years and it is hard to believe an 8-bit serial specification is still running studios and live shows.
 
16 channels was a serious limit, but ports and soft synths get us around that easily.
 
It is fortunate that there are not a billion keys on a piano and that no one plays 128th notes at 9,500 BPM.
 

Many happy returns MIDI!

Very cool man.  I fondly remember my first experience with MIDI as a freshman in high school in about 1988.  I think it was a Yamaha QX5 sequencer on an FB-01 module and Roland TR-505.  After that I had an Atari ST1040 on order but it was delayed so I went with a Roland MC500 instead.  I did alot of gigs on that thing.

Midi was 30 years old today,
They took away all of his toys.
His mother sent newspaper clippings to him,
About his old friends who stopped being boys.

...and I was there...
...not so sure about MIDI coinciding with the birth of the net, Arpanet had earlier roots, but I remember DX-7s everywhere, and my smaller, 4 Operator DX-100 was at the core of my first studio...along with two cassette decks, a Peavey 12 channel mixer, a homemade Strat, a Scholtz Rockman, an Alesis Microverb, and a Yamaha PSS-480, with built in drum machine, AND A 1200 NOTE SEQUENCER.
 
Jump back, Cakewalk...1200 NOTES!
 
BOOyah!

Dude!...love that carpet.

To the birth of MIDI (and the demise of DCB).
Does seem time to rethink the 5pindin plugs though...

MIDI is only half the man age that I Am.

doncolga
Dude!...love that carpet.

 
The carpet in that pic has gotten a lot of comments over the years. I wish the Goodwill lamp with the "organ pipes" was better visible, but what startles me anymore in that pic is the wood rails on the mixer. Its hard to believe that wood and metal used to be more efficient than plastic. I remember wishing I could afford a PC, but they cost 8 grand back then. I also remember pining for audio sync. MIDI sequencers were available on blue collar salaries back then, but sync to tape required SMPTE and a multitrack deck, and to do that right was somewhere tween $50 and $250k.