polyfusion

I'm happy to offer free shipping to any MIDIbox forum members who want to try the meeblip micro. It uses the same sound generation engine as the Meeblip SE, which includes dual envelopes, anti-aliased waveforms, PWM, variable pulse wave, FM, noise and full MIDI parameter control. Back in the pre-historic early 2000s, Thorsten's work was an inspiration that encouraged me to eventually muck around with DIY kits. Just visit meeblip.noisepages.com/get-one/ and use the discount code EUROMICRO for free shipping to the EU, or USMICRO for free shipping to the USA. Oh, and here's a video showing the new iPad version of the Lemur controlling a V1 Meeblip: http://youtu.be/Grpn0WiqtRU And an all-Meeblip track that shows a broader range of what it can do:

Agreed. The code is only 4K so far, so I have 28K of empty memory to play with for the near future. I am leaning toward implementing a version of the MIOS8 bootloader, but I need to read the docs first. I really like not needing an extra pin to initiate the transfer (critical in this case, because there are no extra pins). Thanks for the assistance - I think this will come together nicely.

Easy answer: Version 2 of MeeBlip needs MIDI out. I've got enough empty flash memory that we can store a duplicate copy of the firmware. So, if a block fails a checksum the synth could terminate the firmware update, flash an error code and restore the previous firmware.

Excellent. Yes, that sounds like a good solution. No point in reinventing the wheel.

Thanks for spotting MeeBlip. The Quick Build board has cutouts for posts inside the case, that's all. Yes. More or less correct. If you're going to install that board in a case, the connectors are mounted on the smaller daughter board on the bottom of the case and connected to the main board using a jumper cable. We had to do it that way because the rear panel of the case isn't at right angles to the top panel (which would have allowed us to mount the connectors on the bottom of the main board). You can do it two different ways. 1. Mount the switches and pots on the circuit board, and connect external audio, MIDI and power connetors to the rear panel of your case. or 2. Mount switches and pots directly to the front panel of your case. There are header/solder points to allow you to wire external switches and pots. If you do this, you will probably mount the MIDI, audio and power jacks on the board at the bottom rear of your case. As far as using MIDI SysEx to update the firmware instead of requiring an AVR programmer: We're considering releasing a bootloader. The problem is that the MIDI interrupt has to be disabled when programming the AVR's flash memory, and there isn't enough RAM on the chip to stage the firmware into RAM before writing to flash. That means you have to bring it in slowly, in 1K segments. Cheers, James

Hi, I won't be offering any more 8580s - most people had no problems, but several people received dodgy chips, and I believe the problem was on my end.

Hey Massimilano, I was away from my computer for a few days. Just got your private message and will respond.

As Slorrin mentioned, I have about 100 brand new 8580 chips (R5). I'll test each before shipping to make sure that all 3 channels work properly and the filter sounds as it should. To keep things simple, the price is US $29 including postage to the USA/Canada and US $30 including air mail postage to Europe/Oz/and the rest of the world. Chips are packed in static tubes and bags. Money back guarantee against DOA. PM me if you're interested and I'll let you know how to order by Visa/Mastercard.

Wisefire: I wasn't planning to sell stuff through this forum. That said, if anyone is interested in getting some brand new 8580 R5 chips, just give me a shout. Hey Slorrin, no hard feelings about this, I just got worried when I saw stuff about these SIDs in posts all over the forum and thought I better speak up.

[removed... I overreacted to Slorrin's quite genuine enthusiasm.]

Simple. Because the MIDI in on the next unit down the chain with have optoisolation, and so each piece of equipment will be electrically isolated.

Ouch! We all make mistakes, and this one probably isn't so bad for a lot of people -- at least there's a workaround. Good luck with the next batch. :)