Davo

A friend of mine was expecting an Atari Abaq (one of only $very_small_number ever made) some years ago. After a ridiculously long time, it was discovered with a forklift stab wound. Of course the machine was insured, but the shipper wanted to repair it or buy a new one. Idiots! ::)

I have two Atari STs. One is a 520, the other a 1040. Both are in rather sorry physical condition, but they seem to have lots of salvageable parts. In particular, the sound chips are intact. None of this is tested. If you want one or both, you can have them for the cost of shipping from California in the US. Davo

A bit of poking around took me to http://www.fatar.com/home_fatar.htm They don't list prices, but it does seem clear that they're selling a variety of keybeds. http://www.doepfer.de/DIY/MKE_keyboards.htm has stuff on interfacing these keybeds. Davo

Can someone point me in the right direction for finding a keybed? I'd like to explore making my own keyboard without the mess and confusion of cannibalizing an existing midi controller. Davo

Not quite. I'm trying to deal with practice of putting inward-pointing gravity generators on the walls and ceiling of discotheques? Interference patterns from setups like that can cause hum in old synths like the SID chip. It's like AC hum, but has a phasing whoosh to it. Levitation plates are about the only thing I can use for shielding, but is counterproductive if you want to sit in a chair while at the keyboard and the only place to set up your stuff is on the ceiling.

Have you considered the x0xb0x for your TB303 needs/urges? See http://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/. The Oakley offering is certainly attractive. Pity it doesn't seem available anymore.

IMHO, weighted action is only useful when you're playing stuff written for piano or harpsichord.

Personally, I use and love the Roland PC 200 mk2 and am thinking of getting another one. I've been thinking of getting a keyboard with lots of knobs, but am uncertain of how good a fit this would make with midibox stuff and rackmount stuff, in particular the Yamaha TX802.

I'm fantasizing about a midi router with 32 ports (two for each of 16 channels). I'm pretty sure those will all fit on the back of a 1U chassis. What front panel controls would one want for a midi router?

Are they rated for use in variable gravity environments?

You might be able to get the job done by fooling around with the parallel port. You have eight digital lines to play with, so that means four encoders. Where are you geographically, anyhow?

Now for some questions. What values would be best? If the pots can be replaced, you'll need ones with 90 degrees of travel rather than the 280 or whatever it is on regular ones. It looks like I can get a 25-unit lot with 100k pots. Opinions? Questions? Now is the time for me to tell a little more about myself so you won't feel like I'm some sort of con-artist. I've been selling stuff on Ebay for a couple years under the name "frotz661" with a current score of 203/100%. I deal mostly in vintage computer equipment and have lots of repeat customers. Davo

I'm ordering four to tinker with. I have the capacity to stock stuff, so if you all want to do a group buy, I can coordinate it. Davo

Non-centering joysticks. If you ask nicely, she'll sell you smaller quantities. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7625366779 and http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7624998418

Hrm... I can do that easily on a monophonic synth. At least for me, it's very similar to doing gracenotes on the bagpipes or tin whistle. Davo

This sounds like something that could easily be included in the midi router project... which I'm very interested in. Hey, TK, any chance of a formal writeup on that soon?

You missed me. I was looking for 5.

Well, the thing is, nothing yet has eight PLG slots.

A PLG card is a synth on a card board that plugs into Yamaha's latest series of keyboards and rack units. One card offered replicates a DX7. Kenton has a 1U rack unit device that accepts four cards. I started wondering whether or not Midibox could be used to control PLG cards. Now, here's my fantasy: A Yamaha TX802 has eight tone generators each with two notes of polyphony. Each generator has its own button to turn it on or off. Generators can be ganged together to increase polyphony. The may also be set to trigger in sequence. What I'd like to do is create a TX802 that has 16 voices for each generator. This could also be viewed as replicating a TX816 and giving it a real front panel. So, I'm presenting the idea of using Midibox core modules to control PLG cards similarly to how the FM and SID modules are controlled. I presume something will need to sit between the core and the PLG card. Generally, this would start as a Plugstation box capable of handling eight cards to which a front panel is added. Hmm, maybe it would be easier to take two of these Plugstation boxes and use Midibox modules to glue them together and provide a front panel. Now think how it'll feel and sound if you assign each tone generator a different rank of pipes. Mmmmmm!!! Does anyone here know where to find specs on PLG cards?

Hmm, those drum sounds are nice, but how about the buzzy and crunchy sounding drums one usually finds in C64 demos?

With all these nifty new features talked about for the MBSID, it's all supposed to work with TK's standard step c layout. That's good, since trying to cram more stuff in a 3u space there probably isn't going to look nice. How about instead creating an auxiliary control surface? It wouldn't be anything more than a midibox controller thingy customized for new SID functions, but it would provide instant access to new features rather than having to go through multiple menus and pushing certain buttons at the same time. Davo

Yay! Now I don't have to drive all over to find the bolt shop 40 miles away!

This started as a cry for help: And then using Google like I should have done in the first place, I found the answer: use the latest release of Wine. If you use Debian and want to use Front Panel Designer, go here: http://www.backports.org/ and use that repository to install Wine. The standard Debian repositories are often out of date. This bug is was specifically referenced by the Wine developers. See http://search.gmane.org/?query=%22front+panel+designer%22&group=gmane.comp.emulators.wine.devel in case you're interested.

I remember reading somewhere, perhaps the Shaeffer website about the choice of glue for glueing a window. The gist is that you need to make sure the glue is appropriate and that there are glues specifically made for bonding acrylic to aluminum. Offhand, I think plain old silicone would be best as long as you use a light coat along the edges and take care not to let it blob up anywhere. But as always, test beforehand.

Sorry, just Linux and BSD here.