A neighbor recently had a yard sale, after which he invited me to take a crack at the left overs before he carted them off to the dump.

Among the plunder was a computer which allegedly works, given a power supply (included, no less) and a hard drive - one of which I think I have stashed away somewhere.

Another goody was a MIDI keyboard. Since I have the "Melody Assistant" program which can run on a MIDI board and our granddaughter could use a starter keyboard (she's quite musical at nearly 2) that went in the back of the Toyota as well.

On closer examination I find that the cord for this thing has an odd plug consisting of a short tube about a half - inch in diameter with five pins arranged in a semi-circle inside of it.

No where on any of our computers, new or old, can I find a port that will accept that plug.

Is there some sort of external hardware that I'm supposed to have to plug in to, or is this just a hopelessly obsolete rig? Do the modern ones just use a USB port in stead?

Do we have to have a computer to make music with a MIDI keyboard, or is there some other sort of rig that one will plug in to in order to turn it into sort of an electric keyboard?

For the price (gratis) I can't complain, but now I'm curious as to how these things work.