TK.

Yes... ;-) Like every common USB device the USB module will be a client, not a host. This means that it isn't possible to get a link to other USB clients. Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi Dan, sure, the LCD logic itself works with +5V, only the liquid crystal cells require a negative supply (-> Vlc pin). You could use an additional PSU which delivers stable 9V - connect the positive end to the ground of your core module and the negative end via a pot to the Vlc input, the contrast has to be adjusted with the pot. If you don't have a PSU available, just use batteries. The LC cells don't require more than 3 mA (will work for a lot of hours ;-)) Best Regards, Thorsten.

sure, thats ok. For me it's only important that Mike and SmashTV own the exclusive right for selling MBHP PCBs which are copyrighted by me, so that the upcoming developments are not in danger. I've nothing against people who are starting collective orders, so long as they don't sell the kits for profit on the free market (means also EBay) Best Regards, Thorsten.

sure, thats ok. For me it's only important that Mike and SmashTV own the exclusive right for selling MBHP PCBs which are copyrighted by me, so that the upcoming developments are not in danger. I've nothing against people who are starting collective orders, so long as they don't sell the kits for profit on the free market (means also EBay) Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi Dan, for the case that you want to try it with an external voltage source w/o the DC converter: http://www.ucapps.de/tmp/mios_v1_2_pre3.hex.zip now supports an option for the KS0108 driver which inverts the chip select pins your T6963C based GLCD more than 2 CLCDs (in fact the number of CLCDs which can be driven by one core is now only limited by the number of free pins) for your LCD you need to change lc_init.inc: USER_Init LC_Init ;; use a KS0108 compatible graphical LCD with inverted chip selects movlw 0x01 movwf MIOS_PARAMETER1 movlw 0x01 call MIOS_LCD_TypeSet it would be great if you could check this with your HD61202 GLCD Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi Dan, yes, the new datasheet makes much more sense - among other pins Vdd and Vss are exchanged, this means that you will get a short when you connect the LCD in the wrong order. Thats exactly what you've noticed. It's also interesting that the pin name for the reset line indicates a low-active input /RST, means: you have to use a pull-up to +5V. Now I see only two problems: Vee is missing, this means that you have to supply V0 (here: Vlc) with ca. -8V to -10V from external. (Note: in some days I will publish a MAX759 based DC converter which supplies up to -15V from a 5V source). Another problem are the chip select lines /CS1 and /CS2. They are inverted. However, I can compile a special MIOS version for testing purposes if another polarity is required. But in the meantime just check if the core voltage is ok with the new pinning. Best Regards, Thorsten.

This week we can enjoy some great masterpieces from Tux (France) RAF (another fellow from France :-) ) and last but not least from LO (New Zealand):

This week we can enjoy some great masterpieces from Tux (France) RAF (another fellow from France :-) ) and last but not least from LO (New Zealand):

Alright, it seems that I've misinterpret one of your comments ("The points u mentions are coming up at like -0.186V"). The datasheet says the the LCD consumes about 3mA --- thats nothing compared to other components. So it must be a wiring error (are you sure that this: http://www.notapplicable.co.uk/mbhp/dg-12864.pdf is the correct datasheet?). One thing that you can do is to remove all wires from the display and to connect them again in the following order (turn off the power before every step!) Vss/Vdd check if the core sends a MIDI message after power-on Vee->Pot->V0 check if the core sends a MIDI message after power-on control lines (D/I, R/W, E, CS1, CS2) check if the core sends a MIDI message after power-on data lines (D0-D7) check if the core sends a MIDI message after power-on reset line with a 10k pull-up against Vdd check if the core sends a MIDI message after power-on OR reset line with a 10k pull-down against Vss check if the core sends a MIDI message after power-on does it help? Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi Dan, some days ago you wrote that you are seeing the pixels (points), so the contrast voltage level is ok and doesn't require an additional supply. The backlight is another issue, but not so important yet. However, it would be interesting for me if the display driver is still active. Could you please send the following SysEx string to the core and write down the return message? F0 00 00 7E 40 00 0D 02 00 0B 12 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 F7 Best Regards, Thorsten.

For some reasons Mike is not able to open a PayPal account, but if you don't want to send him the money on the old-style method, just wait for SmashTV's alternative offer Best Regards, Thorsten.

For some reasons Mike is not able to open a PayPal account, but if you don't want to send him the money on the old-style method, just wait for SmashTV's alternative offer Best Regards, Thorsten.

Since people now thinking about big bulk orders at professional PCB manufacturers just to save a little money, I have to say something about the impact for the future development of the MIDIbox hardware platform. I started with the unified MBHP last summer after I got a chance to receive free prototype boards from Mike - the deal was that I can send him as much new layouts as I want when he is allowed to sell the boards in his online shop. He sells the boards for low-profit, and the prices are much better compared to low-quantity orders at one of the big manufacturers like PCB-Pool, so I was very satisifed with this solution. Mike is one of the last guys who sees his profession for supporting especially DIY people with well made and cheap PCBs, and this has to be rewarded. Some weeks ago also SmashTV asked me for permission - I approved after I noticed how much effort he spent for some PCB layout improvements. The new boards are better to solder, components from the US now fitting perfectly, and some of the parts have been changed so that they are easier to order outside Europe. The new PCBs and the appr. Mouser/Reichelt partlists will be available for public after I've tested the boards - the new hardware will be 1:1 compatible to the existing solutions! Don't hesitate to order boards from Mike, they are also ok! In the future Mike will provide premade PCBs especially for Europe. It isn't clear yet if Chriss will sell kits again after his hospital stay, but as a new alternative Tim aka SmashTV will offer premade PCBs, MBHP kits, a free PIC burning service and maybe also the possibility to get customized boards. In the last time he gave me a lot of tips, how I can improve my designs. And he started to create the layout of the USB module for us! So I think that this effort has also to be rewarded. If you now start to make big PCB orders at other manufacturers, the effort and investions which have been made by Mike and SmashTV will not be profitable anymore --- they possibly have to discontinue their offerings --- and I will not be able to design new hardware when I don't have the possibility to get free prototypes (example: SmashTV will send me some PCBs so that I can complete the Quad-SID firmware, and he will send me the USB prototypes for testing). In fact this will impact all of us! Please keep this in mind if you plan to order PCBs somewhere else. Best Regards, Thorsten. P.S.: this doesn't mean that you are not allowed to start bulk orders for components.

Since people now thinking about big bulk orders at professional PCB manufacturers just to save a little money, I have to say something about the impact for the future development of the MIDIbox hardware platform. I started with the unified MBHP last summer after I got a chance to receive free prototype boards from Mike - the deal was that I can send him as much new layouts as I want when he is allowed to sell the boards in his online shop. He sells the boards for low-profit, and the prices are much better compared to low-quantity orders at one of the big manufacturers like PCB-Pool, so I was very satisifed with this solution. Mike is one of the last guys who sees his profession for supporting especially DIY people with well made and cheap PCBs, and this has to be rewarded. Some weeks ago also SmashTV asked me for permission - I approved after I noticed how much effort he spent for some PCB layout improvements. The new boards are better to solder, components from the US now fitting perfectly, and some of the parts have been changed so that they are easier to order outside Europe. The new PCBs and the appr. Mouser/Reichelt partlists will be available for public after I've tested the boards - the new hardware will be 1:1 compatible to the existing solutions! Don't hesitate to order boards from Mike, they are also ok! In the future Mike will provide premade PCBs especially for Europe. It isn't clear yet if Chriss will sell kits again after his hospital stay, but as a new alternative Tim aka SmashTV will offer premade PCBs, MBHP kits, a free PIC burning service and maybe also the possibility to get customized boards. In the last time he gave me a lot of tips, how I can improve my designs. And he started to create the layout of the USB module for us! So I think that this effort has also to be rewarded. If you now start to make big PCB orders at other manufacturers, the effort and investions which have been made by Mike and SmashTV will not be profitable anymore --- they possibly have to discontinue their offerings --- and I will not be able to design new hardware when I don't have the possibility to get free prototypes (example: SmashTV will send me some PCBs so that I can complete the Quad-SID firmware, and he will send me the USB prototypes for testing). In fact this will impact all of us! Please keep this in mind if you plan to order PCBs somewhere else. Best Regards, Thorsten. P.S.: this doesn't mean that you are not allowed to start bulk orders for components.

Hi, yes - the current PIC16F implementation will not be enhanced anymore (out of memory), all future developments will only be made for the new PIC18F Best Regards, Thorsten.

You must hear the SID through the "Grainstates FX", recorded and granulated in realtime, parameter controlled by a MB64seq - it rocks! :) Best Regards, Thorsten.

You must hear the SID through the "Grainstates FX", recorded and granulated in realtime, parameter controlled by a MB64seq - it rocks! :) Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hm, in this case I'm very unsure what is causing the trouble. Maybe the LCD needs some additional time until it is ready for receiving a command. Maybe you should try a second initialization in the init hook (e.g lc_init.inc): USER_Init movlw 200 ; wait for 200 ms call MIOS_Delay movlw 0x3e + 1 ; Display On command call MIOS_LCD_Cmd Best Regards, Thorsten.

...Reaktor 4 has been released! :)

...Reaktor 4 has been released! :)

yep Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi, In the meantime I tried it with different browsers and operating systems, but I cannot reproduce these problems. Ok - you are not able to jump to an URL directly (e.g http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp.html), this URL will be redirected to the main page if the page will be entered from external. But once you are in the main page, the links to the other pages should work. I realized it on this way for the reason that it gives me the freedom to rename pages like I want, to move pages to other servers and to have the menu at the left side available every time. Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi, In the meantime I tried it with different browsers and operating systems, but I cannot reproduce these problems. Ok - you are not able to jump to an URL directly (e.g http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp.html), this URL will be redirected to the main page if the page will be entered from external. But once you are in the main page, the links to the other pages should work. I realized it on this way for the reason that it gives me the freedom to rename pages like I want, to move pages to other servers and to have the menu at the left side available every time. Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi Olivier, all pot values should be sent out when the pots are not in snap mode and you type on the snapshot button quickly (!). When you press the button for a longer time, the pot&button setup will be saved. Best Regards, Thorsten.

Hi Dan, yes, the second MIDI In is connected to J4 via an optocoupler. The circuit cannot be powered via MIDI - this would require some circuit changes and mostly it will not run successfully (I tried it once, it worked with my AN1x, but didn't work on another users synth, so I gave up) Best Regards, Thorsten.