All over the board: Porable Audio Device, Midi, Max/Msp..etc, Need help with a rig I have in mind... Options

[Mysidia]

I have a TiBook 400mhz with 384 megs of RAM. I'd like to buy a setup that will allow me to do the following:

Have Max/Msp record and playback guitar samples in realtime via controller messages it gets from a midi foot controller. So I'd be playing guitar, and it would then potentially record things at the tap of my foot, then play them back when I stomp accordingly, and then record more samples to play on top of those samples. Its essentially a software loop station.



I figure if Im buying an audio input somewhere in there, I might as well use it for sequencing and whatnot too. I imagine anything that can handle the Msp tasks above could prob do that no matter what, but figured Id mention just in case.

Any info on any of this (A good portable audio device, be it card, usb, firewire) to record streaming audio and play it back, all in a realtime environment (latency free! ; ) - would be very apprecaited.. and if anyone has any experience with midi pedals.. thatd be cool too, still havent seen a model that looks all that great.
Im a student and without very much cash, but Id be willing to save up for a while for this one as hopefully I could get many years of use out of it.. thanks for reading!

Chris