tarzan boy

I've tried this today, both double checking my DIN/DOUT connections and running the app mentioned, and the response on the LCD reads like this: Received an AIN Event: $$/$$$ where $ is an ever-quick-changing digit. Pushing my buttons have absolutely no effect but when I spin my encoders REALLY fast, the first two digits of the readout tend to slow down a bit and hover at a certain number. How does one customize the app so that it filters out AIN inputs? I thought maybe it's receiving so many of AIN that the LCD isnt displaying the DINs. is this AIN readout expected (I have nothing attached to J5 on the cores) or is this a sign of something else amiss? EDIT: I've now tried switching the master PIC to a different core and I get the same problem, so the actual core board being a problem is out. I've also tried only having DIN or only having DOUT plugged in and the behavior is the same, i.e. either buttons and encoders do not change the information on the LCD (when only DIN is plugged) or the lights turn on to initial positions but do not move- like the matrix which usually flickers after boot (when only DOUT is plugged). I'm reducing the possiblities of problems to quite a narrow margin now. Does anyone see somewhere that I am not looking?

I am sooo close, but some little gremlin has taken my prize away. Last night I finally had the whole MBSIDx4 working with full control surface for the first time. I was exploring all the features for the first time; 303, WT, etc, and after making my first patch that I was happy with, I tried to save it in bank B of my 8 bank bankstick. While trying to use the SAV submenu (which, btw, I have found no documentation on, maybe i'm not looking in the right place) I was stuck at trying to change the name of the patch from <empty> to something else. I didn't know what to do so it was a few minutes of trial and error. Eventually I gave up trying to name it, so I wanted to switch to another patch in Bank A and then go back to B002 <empty> and see if the new patch had actually been saved. When I changed to Bank A, the internal default patch was enabled and no matter which patch I went to, nothing changed; it stayed the default patch and no patch-changing 'click' was occurring. I thought at first, 'oh no I've erased my whole bankstick trying to save this thing' but then I thought this was probably unlikely since all the patchnames were still there. I powered-off and turned it back on and then none of my control surface worked. Not one button, although the standard LEDs that light up at startup were on. After a few restarts, trying with the bankstick plugged and unplugged, I figured nothing was going to change this way, so I tried re-uploading the MBSID app via sysex, thinking maybe my save attempt messed with the software. When I got no changes from this, I tried re-updating the MIOS using the "update with old mios" sysex file included in the MIOS 1.9 release. Then reloaded the SID app and still, same behavior. Then I tried sending program change messages from my DX7 and discovered that all my patches are indeed still there: the one master SID that is enabled (since i cannot press the 'link' button) will 'click' and change to whichever patch I please; just not accessable from the control surface. I checked my wiring and nothing has changed since last night, both DOUT and DIN are a-ok as far as I know, and it seems this problem is at a deeper level than DIN and DOUT because both the LEDs and buttons/encoders stopped working at the same moment. Does anyone have an idea? a similar experience? Please help, I was literally recharging my camera to take a final picture of the thing when this happenned!

I didn't mention that there were already 2 c64s that had been sitting there collecting dust for 5 years when i started working there -- and I bought those two. The owner just started giving them to me after that. Only poor immigrants come to the place (looking for clothes, furniture, other non-obsolete things), so if I donate my time to get a few obsolete computers, no harm done! :)

i'm stuck in poor old mac osx 10.3.x world and must use sysex files to upload to my cores. Can i still use the hex2syx.pl file included in all old releases to convert these new files (beta15 and mios v1.9) in the ways documented before, i.e. x0: perl hex2syx.pl update_with_old_mios.hex -device_id 0x00 x1: perl hex2syx.pl update_with_old_mios.hex -device_id 0x01 x2: perl hex2syx.pl update_with_old_mios.hex -device_id 0x02 x3: perl hex2syx.pl update_with_old_mios.hex -device_id 0x03 and the same change in the 6581/8580 beta15 hex file for each slave i'll need (without_cs) i.e. perl hex2syx.pl setup_8580_without_cs -device_id 0x01 perl hex2syx.pl setup_6581_without_cs -device_id 0x02 perl hex2syx.pl setup_8580_without_cs -device_id 0x03 I am guessing everything is the same as it used to be, but considering these two new releases do not include the hex2syx.pl file, it is making me wonder if it will work correctly.

here in italy people throw their c64s away! i've found 3 in the dumpster and 5 donated to the local charity that i picked up free (since i work there) when i see them for sale on ebay its too much, but that is true of any country i think you just need to know where to look

So there is a chance that my mysteriously non-responding PIC is the result of some airport tomfoolerly? because honestly I am dreading setting up my crappy unreliable broccoli18 pic burner again to re-burn the ID onto this thing. would it be more likely that the PIC is completely fried or just wiped blank? The other 3 are still fine.

I have bad luck with the special handling people on airlines; my guitar has been lost 2 times and the case ripped in two another time. I had this packed up in its almost completed case (a C16 shell) inside an original C64 box, all chips packed in static bags taped to the styrofoam of the C64 box where the power supply would normally be packed, then this whole thing put into my suitcase surrounded on all sides by either by clothes or books and clothes. But i suppose none of it could have prevented the moisture and cold. didn't want to risk it getting scanned for carry-on and having to explain myself with these homemade electronics I'm bringing on board, when I already have a suspicious passport and get questioned all the time at customs (lots of travel stamps and a birthplace in one of the axis of evil countries.) god bless the USA...

i'll take a look at this tomorrow (deathly tired now). maybe one or my of the 165's is getting some shorts on it from some wonky jumper solders I made on the back. Thanks Wilba

OK, a few days later and I've learned an important lesson: Don't ever take your MBSID in mid-construction on 6 different airline flights and expect everything to be cool and hunky dory like you left it 3 months before. Right now I have isolated my problems and gotten quite a bit of it fixed. Working: -All Core boards and Sid boards will function with confirmed-working PICs in a one-on-one relationship (no slaves running off it) -Bankstick with 3 banks, A,B,C. I've uploaded some presets to A so far. Remaining problems (not mentioned in http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=6464.0) : -definately PIC IDx3 is either dead or somehow got completely wiped. I'll try to re-burn it (NIGHTMARE) with my broccoli18 setup later this week when i have hours and hours of patience. -although all SID modules are confirmed working now, i can now only get simultaneous sound from IDx0 and IDx2 sids (the two 6581's.) Still trying to trouble shoot this. -Row 3 of my LED matrix is mysteriously dead. -All the connections are correct to the DOUT board, i can get each LED to light up by itself in that row by touching the contacts to my multimeter in Testing mode, but it remains unlit when my CS is powered on. -Am I naive enough to see if switching around my 74HC595s will work? Yep, coming soon. Any suggestions on what could be the problem with the LED matrix? The other stuff, my current path of poking around I think will get me to an answer, but this problem is a new kind of monster, not really sure what I can do about it.

Hello all. as an addendum to my current situation, http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=6443.0 I am having a problem with my LCD jumping to the "LFO Submenu" (mentioned and illustrated on this page: http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_cs.html) and getting stuck there. My extended control surface will still function as normal, but the LCD will just stay on the LFO Submenu and the 'minimal control surface' (the 5 buttons and encoder for LCD) won't respond until I power off and restart. This will occur after about 30 seconds of the MBSID being turned on. I'm using the beta14 of 1.7303 on my master core. It will occur no matter which SID i am currently controlling, and if I switch between SIDs using the CS, the LFO Submenu will change to the data of the corresponding SID, but still will be stuck on that page. Any enlightenment?

looky looky, i'm an idiot! My first overtly dumb mistake of the project. Yes, as i have just disconnected all the boards from the case to debug some problems tonight, i can plainly see now that I stuffed the 470's instead of the 6.8's, and when i just looked in my jar of unused components, i found my 6.8's just sitting there. thanks moebius, and try not to judge me!

Hiya, Anyone had this problem before, or perhaps Smash: have you heard of this? I am currently troubleshooting my full mbsidx4 (see http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=6443.0) When I plugged my lone SmashTV sid module (the others are all from the german shop) into the master core, I got a strange noise. Its stuffed for the 8580, and the noise is a quiet slowly moving (pitch-wise) tone that goes down from high into low nothingness. It eventually goes away, after maybe 6-7 seconds, but the overall volume of that sid module is noticeably quieter (perhaps as much as 10db) than the other 8580 sid module, even when stuffed with the same SID chip. Also the filter sweeps are really erratic, giving weird hissing noises at different intervals and generally not being smooth or pleasing. And again, the other 8580 sid module does not behave this way. Could the filter caps be bad and this is the only reason? Would those same faulty capacitors make such a pitched tone when powered on and also affect the overall volume of the module? I'm assuming it can't be the master Core's software making the error as I do not get this behavior when i plug the other SIDmodule with the same SIDchip directly into the master Core. I also will note that the caps that come with the german board are smaller with the two legs coming from the bottom of a yellow mass with a blue band, whereas these that came with the Smash set have the legs coming out of opposite sides of a silver tube -- i don't know enough about capacitors to know if these are in fact different 'kinds' of caps or merely different presentations of the same kind.

Greetings, Tonight was the big night when I plugged all the ICs into their sockets and ran my bad boy for its first time. First I'll go through what I've already done up until this point -- in order to set aside any misunderstandings of what I might have done wrong: way back in october I got my "Step 1" mbsid working; LCD, 5 buttons, and a 6581R1 sid making some sounds. Since then, off and on because of travel for work, I've: -Built up all 3 slave modules -created a 'optimized C64 power supply' -programmed successfully each PIC with header and corresponding mios with device IDs 1-3 -programmed each slave PIC with correct type of SID app, i.e. IDx1 and IDx3 for 8580 and IDx2 for 6581 -created a full control surface from an old C16 case, a C64 motherboard as panel, and lots of drilling -tested all of the buttons and LEDs for correct wiring -confirmed all voltages to be correct for each module -the 6581's have 12 volts -the 8580's have 9 volts Tonight I popped the PICs all in, and since I hadn't messed with the ICs part of the project since december, I put them in in order of what I thought was 1-2-3-4, but in fact I put them in 1-3-4-2 (because I was looking at the Device ID number I had written in Sharpie on the top of each of my slave pics --the IDx0 pic is from Smash so its the only one with a white sticker on it -- so i dropped "2" in thinking it was the 2nd one, then 3, then the 'other' one.) Then i tested voltages in the SID modules one more time. Everything was gravy, so then i put the sids in, paying careful attention to put the 6581's where the 12volts was, and 8580's where the 9volts was. So i fired it up-- with the pics in the wrong places, mind you-- this means that instead of IDx0 IDx1 IDx2 IDx3 IDx0 IDx2 IDx3 IDx1 master slave slave slave master slave slave slave 6581 8580 6581 8580 I had: 6581 8580 6581 8580 which means the slave pics 2&3 had an incorrect model of SID with them. So without knowing it I was going to experience some crappy filter issues. But that wasn't my problem: I pushed LINK, then: My problem was that only SID#4 was playing. Not even the Master was playing notes. After fiddling around for a few minutes and realizing that I had placed the pics in the wrong sockets and that IDx1 -- button SID#2 on my control surface -- was controlling #4, I turned off and switched to the correct PIC setup. Now, predicting only that SID #2 would work (the pic is good and all the others have errors), or only SID #4 would work (the SID is good and all the other SIDs are dead), I turned on and found only SID#3 to be working. So, IDx1 in socket #4 makes SID#4 work, but IDx1 in socket #2 doesnt make SID#2 work IDx3 in socket #3 doesn't make SID#3 work, and IDx3 in socket #4 doesn't make SID#4 work. but, IDx2 in socket #2 doesn't make SID#2 work, but IDx2 in socket #3 makes SID#3 work. other clues: I am getting the start-up "pop" from every sid, and a high pitch buzz from both the 6581's. So there's something going through there. Also when I move certain rotary encoder knobs I'll get a quiet 'click' noise from every sid, letting me know the whole thing is functioning in some way. Anyone know what the problem could be?

i would do it, i'm in italy

Hello All, After nearly 3 months of not working on my project for travel, I am back at home and my mind has forgotten something very important: Which pin is "PIN 1" of the 6N138? Unlike the bigger ICs it doesn't have a little indented 'lip' to indicate its 'top', instead it has an indented circle in the top-left or lower-right; depending on how you look at it. Now does this circle indicate the end of the IC that the 'lip' would normally be at, the 'top,' or does this circle indicate the 'bottom?' I don't want to risk frying these little chips, seeing as i am so so very close to stuffing all the ICs and running my first test of my boxed SIDx4 with complete control surface! thanks everyone regards

4 8580's and 3 6581's and one of the 6581's (the oldest, manf. # 4882) was socketed. I took great care, practiced on a few socketed chips on a broken commodore 16, ended up only using patience and a solder pump (the aluminum spring loaded kind) to make sure each leg was free of its hole on the underside before attempting to pull it out. I had no solder braid either, never used it actually. nnn

john, quite simple: think of questions, search the forums with keywords, look at completed midiboxes by other forum users, look at the main site (www.ucapps.de) save the money, look for places to order parts, get half way finished all your soldering and realize there is a better way which you will use next time! Its all overwhelming at first, but -- I and i'm sure others will follow with similar suggestions -- after some time to wrap your whole head around it all, it becomes 2nd nature. good luck tb

me too!

I've been here in Europe constructing my MBSIDx4 using the c64 psu optimixed schematic; but its occurred to me that eventually I will want to take my new toy back home to the States. Will I be able to use a C64 PSU rated for 120v 60hz with my MBSID that was constructed and functions with a PSU in western europe (220-240v 50hz?)

this looks fantastic, i'll try it out as soon as i finish my mbsid, starting on soldering the led matrix tonight!

whatsa diode cable? can i make it myself with diodes and, uh...cable? also i plan on putting RCA jacks as additional audio outputs; will having both active deteriorate the signal? if so i can put in some button to switch from one to the other but i want to avoid any more complexity.

Hello all, I've searched the forums for this answer, maybe i missed it somewhere, but I hope someone can help. I was wondering if anyone could tell me the best way to wire the audio outputs for the 4*sid MBSID step C; I have four 1/4" jacks on a blank board inside my c64 box, but I'm not sure if I should wire the ground for each of the jacks directly from each sid module or from a common ground point somewhere else. I'm using the c64 psu optimized schematic; so all the grounds right now are wired together as indicated in that schematic. Is it better to use the ground from somewhere in this wiring or directly from one or each of the sid modules? thanks tb

i never unplugged the programmer or shorted the cap before inserting the chip.... maybe try that?

no changes, except for whichever one change in the main.asm calls the function CS_MENU_PRINT_DEV. Sorry i'm not at home at the moment so i cant say which exact change that is, i think AUTO_CS_ENABLED.

just found another c64 in a junk heap today, so its getting to the point where i will have enough sids soon that i'll be interested too... keep us updated.