Rowan

Hi, I'm looking for a Assembler to edit and compile MIOS code that will run under OS X (10.3.5). I've been hunting around the net for a while now but with no luck. Any suggestions? Regards Rowan

Hi I can tell you for a fact a HD44780 based 40 x 4 LCD just has an extra enable line, still 8 data lines etc (My 40 x 4 LCD's have 2 HD44780 controllers, the first for the top two lines and the second for the bottom two lines). I've got a couple of 40 x 4 LCD's which I will use one of in my next MB i'm building at the moment. Regards Rowan

Hi bod, Welcome to the forum. With regard to your second question, What you really need to think about is how much "abuse" your controller have to indure. Mounting the encoders/pots and buttons on the chasie is far more robust. Matrix board is also a good idea, but beware, when you design your panel make sure all your mesurments are done in 0.1" (2.54mm) grid. That's the spacing on most matrix board. So if you can do both, all pro mixing consoles have to pots solderd to PCB's AND bolted to the front. Regards Rowan

Hi, I too am a member of this club, so here is some words from the wise. The only way you will have any luck with your reversed boards is to solder the IC's to the track side of the board. This is because the Vss and Vdd pins will now be in the wrong place. Because of this you don't need to worry about reassigning the input/output pins, they will all be where they are ment to be. Regards Rowan

Hi, I keen to use an optical encoder because the feel is MUCH nicer that standard encoder due to no mechnical switch contacts and the resolution is up 400 times better (I kid you not, up to 10 000 ppr). Besides, I have an optical encoder which I ripped out of a broadcast DAW controller from the Jog wheel, which I want to use as well. I'll do some more research Regards Rowan

Great news I noticed Eagle is out for OS X Check ftp://ftp.cadsoft.de/pub/program/4.13 Regards Rowan

Hi I would like to use a optical encoder for a jog wheel. has anyone used an optical encoder with DIN's here is some info http://www.usdigital.com/products/s1s2/body_index.shtml?noframes & http://www.usdigital.com/products/em1-heds/ Regards Rowan

Hi LO, I still haven't tried the LCD's yet so I can't offer you any advice at this stage, I hope we haven't been sold lemons. You are only using the top 2 rows, right? If so what have you done with the second enable line. Maybe It should be tied low? I don't know, just taking a stab. I'm going to use the Orban DSE7000 as a "shell" for a MBLC. I've ripped the thing to bits, de-solderd all the buttons and faders. It proved to be a resonable buy, no motorfader though. 40 x quaility illuminated buttons with removable LED's (I think this is cool, i'll be able to easily change LED colour if I need to in the future). 10 x 100mm 10k lin faders 1 optical encoder with nice wighted Jog wheel A Case, pre cut And a desk with a pull out keyboard tray and monitor stand with enough room for 2 x 17" LCD monitors I think I'll add a 40 x 4 LCD and 8 encoders. I've started working on the PCB layout, which is a mission. Got to get every thing in just the right spot or it wont fit in the case. later Rowan

Hi, I saw on the Jaycar website that they are now stocking the 24LC256 EEPROM for the bankstick STOCK-CODE: ZZ8485 Price: $5.95 each Regards Rowan

Hi LO Are you using those 4 x 40 LCD's, If so I can send you the datasheet which has all the mesurments. You should be able to work out the spacing with that. Regards Rowan

Hi great suggestions marr. I'm not sure how others feel about your input, but it sound very good to me. The divison of labour is a must as it's a huge job ahead of us. More input would be great because of your experience with such things. The next and most important thing is what does TK want! Regards Rowan

Hi, I'm glad you guys like the idea. Like Screaming_Rabbit I have no idea what a WIKI is. Could you direct us to a good WIKI so we can have a look at what you are talking about. Does anyone know how the Linux community do their documentation? Regards Rowan

Hi All Lets all get together and write some good documentation for the MB. I see this as a massive undertakeing for one person (i.e. TK). It's about time we gave something back. All MIDIboxers will gain from this. The MIOS platform has become so powerfull in the last year it has almost become unmanageable for anyone other than its creater to fully understand (I've been MIDIboxing for about 1.5 years now, and am still having serious problems). I don't know how we will organize this (any PROFESSIONAL technical writers out there?). All the forum regulars have seen the same questions comming up again and again. How about some kind of searchable Help file (you know, like all good software has). I think this would be great! When I started out building I would often have to go on-line to fine out some detail (I'm still iiving in the world of dial-up, so it is a hassel). I would have loved some kind of all-in-one solution that I could have downloaded with all the info required. Like I say this is a MASSIVE job, but the MIDIbox is only going to get bigger and better so the sooner it starts the better. I will not have time to co-ordinate such a project for the next six months as I'm writing my Thesis (the MB is a large part of it, and I will make this avalibe to anyone who is interested). At this stage I can commit myself to documenting the generic remote set-up in Cubase SX. Are you guys (Sorry if their are any females out there) up to such a project. This project will be a living document as the MB never stays still. What do you all think. Regards Rowan

Hi, Have a VERY long hard look at the generic remote set up in cubase. It's amazing what can be done with a MIDIbox and this (in fact any device that spits out MIDI data) It can take a long time to set it up so it will work the way you want but it's well worth the effort. I set up a MB64 with it a it took a whole weekend to get it right but was worth it. I'm now using a Fostex VM200 digital mixer with it, as my MB64 doesn't have motorfader and the VM200 does (And it looks nicer than my MB). You don't need banksticks to change fader banks, all you have to do is set up multipul remote templates and assign a couple of buttons on your MB to switch between them. The Generic remote in Cubase SX is VERY powerful (as far as I understand SX2's generic remote is even better). Use it!!!!!!! Regards Rowan

Hi, I'm not 100% sure what i'm going to use them for yet. After looking at the datasheet I found thhat this display has 2 enable lines, so as far as MIOS is concerned this is two 40 x 2 displays. Make me think it would be good for a compact MIDIbox SEQ. Instead of having two LCD's with the encodes etc. below each LCD, I could have the controls above AND below the 40 x 4 LCD. The top 2 line display the first eight step and the bottom two lines display the last 8 steps (I haven't looked at the SEQ documentation yet so I don't know the details, but this is how I understand the display works). What I would like to use these displays for is a LC emulation, 4 faders per LCD. This will give me a 10 x 4 display per fader. I haven't even thought about how I will achive this, and what extra info will be displayed. I'm sure MIOS is up to the job. The LC already supports two LCD's per core, But I'll need the LC to support 4 LCDs per core. TK has documented that this is possible, I'll have to extent the code in order to achive this. Now I think about it I may be better off useing 2 cores (1 per 4 faders). I'm not planing on doing this for a while so it gives me lots of time to think about it and spend some a serious amount of time learning assembly. Rowan

Hi, Thanks LO!!I just brought 2 of them. Picking 'em up tommorow. He has 6 left. Regards Rowan ;D ;D

Hi Screaming_Rabbit, could you send me a copy of the service manual. I'm interested in the analog section to. My address is; rowan@sae.edu Thanks Rowan

Hi, Thats great!!!!!!! I hope you enjoy your SID. Regards Rowan

Hi, Yes, transistors have to be put in to the circuit a certain way. The transistor i'm talking about is marked "T1" on the core schematic. It's the BC337. You could try reversing it. If the transistor is around the wrong way it should get hot. You could try reconnecting the backlight and see if it gets hot, if it does it's around the wrong way. Your best bet is to get your hands on the datasheet which will tell you the pin-out of the transistor. You can then compare that with the schematic of the core. You can use a diode tester to find the "base" of the transistor and whether the transistor is NPN or PNP. You can't tell which of the other two legs is the emmiter or collector. Regards Rowan

Hi, Great!!!!!! LCD's backlight draw alot of current (couple of hundred milliamps) so you should expect the reg to get hot, but you should still be able to touch it. You have now located the fault to the backlight circuit. My money is on the transistor in the backlight driver circuit being connected around the wrong way. Not all makers of transistors use the same pin-out. Do you have a multimeter with an HFE tester? If you do, get youself a new transistor and put it in the HFE tester all ways poss. until the meter reads the highest value. Look at the markings on your multimeter and that will tell you the pin-out of the transistor. The other thing that comes to mind is the brightness pot could set to zero ohms. Try turning it half way and see if the reg still gets hot. best of luck Regards Rowan

Hi Good to hear you have had some luck. a/ Try uploading the SID app again. Do you have a different SID chip you can try? Have you loaded any patches with Jsynth onto the SID? If not, send a patch with Jsynth to the SID (Just follow all the instrustions on uCapps). b/ Does your LCD have backlight? If so try disconnecting the backlight. If the Reg still gets hot you know that isn't causing the problem (I had this problem with my first MB) Keep us informed how you get along. Regards Rowan

Hi 1/ you using OSX? If so you can use "MIDIMonitor" to see what is being spit out of your MB, and you can use "SysExLibrarian" to upload apps to your MB. Check the "Core Upload via MIDI" section in the "HOWTOs" on uCapps for links. 2/ If your LCD shows lots of black blocks on the top row you have the bootstrap loader installed on your PIC but NO MIOS. Once MIOS has been uploaded the LCD will display " MIOS copyright....." for a few seconds then the screen will say "ready". At this stage you have to upload the SID app. 3/ Sounds like a short or maby a component is conected around the wrong way. Check, Double Check then check again. 4/ ? 5/ The SID won't do much until you have the SID app uploaded to the core. The black blocks suggests that MIOS has not been uploaded yet, let alone the SID app. (note: after the bootstrap has been loaded via the JMD then you load MIOS via MIDI then the SID app via MIDI. It must be in the order!!!!!!). Give that a try Regards Rowan

Hi All I picked up my first mac today. I had to let some one know about my first "baby". 12" powerbook, 1.33 Ghz, 756Mb RAM and 60 Gb HD. I've been wanting to get a mac for about 7 years (All those years of study are starting to paying off). I'm one happy camper. Now here is the hard bit: finding software that will do the same job as MIDIOX. Any ideas? God I love this machine. I hate to say that mac's are better than PC's, but after 10min on this beast i'm converted. I've been given a copy of VPC (lets me run windows on a mac) so I can still use MIDIOX. I would rather use an OSX based programe. VPC is VERY slow, but I have to use it to run AUTO CAD. By the way, Safari seems to be about 1.5 times faster than IE (All I've changed is the computer and the browser). See you later Bill. Regards Rowan

Hi I'll be ordering the encoders later this week. I'll be needing ALOT of encoders for my next project. When they reach NZ i'll offer them for a good price for Kiwi's and Ozzy's (If thats cool with TK). ;) I don't mind if I don't sell many, I'll be MIDIboxing for years. Regards Rowan

Very nice !!!!!!!!! No doubt the blue papers helped with insperation 8) 8) How about some pix of the PCB's. Regards Rowan