Davo

Someone was tooling up to do some garage silk-screening to redo the messy job that was done with the first round of panels. Who was that and how are things going?

Nifty! Count me as one of those who'll be buying your CD. I like the way that the MBSID plays a more mellow role than in most of the other examples I've seen posted here. How about a pic or two or three of your MB equipment?

Does anyone here tune their guitar or other stringed instrument with an oscilloscope?

I'd like one set of four.

TK, have you considered using CF cards instead to take advantage of their greater access speeds?

The issue of multicarts for vintage video games has been rolling around in my mind for quite some time. All the really good ones are no longer available, so I thought if I could learn the bare metal of PICs, particularly the PIC16F88, I could make my own. Can I get some suggestions for books to read on microcontrollers? There are dumb multicarts and smart ones. Dumb ones aren't much more than a large ROM and some dip switches. In a smart multicart, a microcontroller translates addresses. Any arbitrary swath of memory can be presented as a ROM of whatever size. So, when the pic first powers up, it shows the menu program. The pic is told which rom to load up through an otherwise unused IO port and then the game starts. My fantasy multicart would be one that accepts a DOS-formatted SD card, so I guess I'd need a beefy PIC to handle that. Any comments?

I'm sorry. That was sloppy of me. I meant that I'm not picky about whether the buttons in question are aligned one way or the other. I now see what you mean.

I still don't see how the buttons are shifted. Anyhow, I'm not picky about that. How close can you get to a panel that looks like #122 at http://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/gallery.html ?

Comparing the pics, I don't see where the alignment changes. It just seems that the Rest, Accent, and Slide buttons were rotated. I think I'll look into painting a metal panel so I can get the white keys look. In particular I crave a front panel like the one Mome Rath put on serial number 122 (see http://www.ladyada.net/make/x0xb0x/gallery.html).

What's up with this chat thing now? Has a decision been made?

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but are these switch tops suitable for use with the modified x0xb0x panel discussed in another thread here?

Have you spent any money on producing this board yet? Given TK's announcement that the USART bug is fixed in new PIC18F4620 chips, I think it would be better to redesign this board to eliminate the IIC components. See http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,10951.0.html for the announcement.

I'm interested in getting a x0xb0x sometime eventually. I'll probably get a standard kit from the ladyada site, but I like the paint jobs, particularly this one: Is there some way I could get a one-off with the standard holes with this paintjob for eventual use with a standard kit? Or maybe there's a way to use horizontal buttons on the official PCB?

I brought up the idea of doing a group buy for this on the cctalk mailing list some time ago. It kinda fizzled out. Still, I'd like to get one of these eventually.

Hmm, I'd scoot IC4 left a bit to avoid the mounting hole. Looks a little too close.

How about using a half-can oscillator so you can move up IC4 and make room for a fourth screw hole? C14 could be moved somewhere else if you don't want to be limited to a half-can. Also, something I like doing with oscillator footprints is make them capable of accepting either a half-can or full-can.

Has anyone used flat-topped leds for their mb6582. I haven't yet fitted mine with leds and I was considering ordering some flat-topped ones. Any opinions on how that would look and feel?

Nils, right below the audio out there's a 5x2 header labeled U$2. Is that where the money goes in?

Mmmm.... I have half a mind to whip up a PCB for this once I acquire a front panel. Who's interested in a PCB/front panel group buy?

Wow! I wouldn't have the patience to do something that complex with veroboard.

Just wondering if anyone has heard of this little gem. It's been called the "Zeusophone" or "Thoramin" among others. See if you can guess what it is before visiting this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYHPZgq_Kgo

I wonder... can it support an arbitrary number of input jacks?

Here's a source for 100-count packets of 1nF 2% polyester caps: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=300110379104. Great for the output stage of the SID. He still has 45 packets left

I've been using standard crimps and headers. Doing what I see here doesn't seem to offer much in the way of speed or ease, but it does offer much for space-savings. I will use it in my mb6582 for connecting the control panel with the mainboard. I can't bring myself to permanently solder the two together because I know eventually I'll want to take the whole thing apart for some reason.

I see that you're willing to take panels from the previous run and resilk them. Are you able to do this with panels that have already had JB-Weld applied to their backsides?