MRE

was your point? MIDIBOX point that is...

would those be log faders and not linear anyway??!

I think it was the interweb's way of telling me I am long winded.

damn.. I had a nice long post.. but the internet ate it.. an (much) abreviated form http://www.tpub.com/neets/book2/3c.htm A cap has a charge and discharge time. The charge time is always MUCH longer than the discharge time. The large cap 'fills in the gaps.' When the regulator output is low, the cap discharges to take up the slack.. when the regulator output is peak, the cap charges. Think of it as an ultra fast battery. In fact, so called mega or super caps are used just like this. They have charge times of nearly an hour, and discharge times at high currents of up to 2 or 3 seconds (often used in low voltage clocks and the like to trigger a high current event once an hour) Tripping a solenoid once an hour on a double A will drain it in a day or two. but charging a cap over an hour, and using the cap to trip the solenoid will make the battery last for weeks. Large caps are used in monitors and TVs to build up enough current at a high voltage to fire the tube, and in stun guns to.. well.. stun you! To understand the small guy, you need to know noise, and more importantly, that noise is spectrum bursts. The regulator does a lot of switching inside. Switching is noise: ALL signals, are actually compunds of sine waves. Even square waves and sawtooths. A square wave is actually made up of a fundamental wave (a sine wave at the intended frequency of the square) PLUS several (if not nundreds) of additional frequency waves in order to make up the smooth top and bottom. Likewise, triangles and sawtooths are compunds of the base frequency, plus multiple frequencies at different amplitudes, thus creating the wave form. So, when a digital signal switches, it bursts out all these waves out into the spectrum. It EXPLODES them, like... (description deleted for the safety of children). If we dont do something, these bits of noise will get into your tunes, or out into the open.. (ever notice that sticker on the back of electronics that says "This device will not interfere with other equipment.." ?) baby cap says 'screw that noise.." Because its size is ultra small (im not talking package, im talking farads) its charge/discharge time is very tiny (thousands/millions of times a second). It takes a beating. Side note: Check out a professional product power supply schematic. Older computers like the C64 are perfect.. notice the scematic has a LOT of caps.. most at one or two specific sizes, but a few at apparently random choices.. the common size ones are usually attached as close as possible to all ICs on the boad.. the others are usually just bunched together somewhere near the supply circuit. The common size ones handle the noise 'at the source' while the rest filter out the random event noise that could potentially cause interfereance with other devices.

A price review would be nice.. sure I could dig it up from previous archives.. but.. yeah.. I imagine the individual price is broken down by how many people go in?

Glitched re: surface Yeah, building the control surface might just be the least documented of the entire project, mainly because that is were the most individuality shows in each project. A newbie CAN build all the modules with only basic soldering skills using SmashTV kits. He/she would not even need to know how to read a schematic... only match the parts to the pictures (ok, perhaps some no brainers, like match the notch on the chip to the notch printed on the board). Resistor color codes might be the only real head scratcher. However, you really need to have an idea of how circuits work when you start on the surface panel. This is the single most benificial area to write a guide for newbies. To most of us its second nature, but to the newbie its a spaghetti nightmare. Where do the wires go? Which pin on this nob (hey thats a pot yo!) do I solder to? Can I just twist all these little upside down triangle marked wires together? A good photo set and descriptions of wiring a series of pots, LEDs, Buttons, and encoders would be really helpfull, as well as a simple trouble shooting guide. I havn't looked recently (and I cant say as I have ever looked FOR IT), but I dont remember EVER seeing such a guide.

I think there are many conflicting concepts here though. On the one hand, we all wish to help newbies get their feathers wet, on the other hand, we dont want to do the work for them. RTFM comes to mind often ;) The idea of an 'Idiots guide to Midibox" is a great one. I suggest: 1: Starting with a simple question/answer guide... almost a choose your own adventure, in which the answer to multiple choice questions then point to the appropriate web link. Example: a: general electronics skill a.1 can you solder? (go here to learn) a.2 can you read schematic symbols for resistors, capacitors, transistors, and basic ICs? (go here) a.3 do you have the following tools: soldering iron, solder, (etc) b: mechanical skill b.1 can you operate hand tools such as a drill and saw? 2: Next, a series of questions to help the newbie narrow down their ideal project a sub part here might be a series of questions to identify what ins and outs they might want.. ultimately leading to a statement such as: "order XX pots, Order YY encoders, order ZZZ leds. Also order BB buttons. Disclaimer: this final tabulation is only an estimate!" 3: finally a 'build progression' for each of the major projects. Example: build the core and one digitial in unit. Get it working. Add a DOUT.. etc... so that the newbie gets results all along the way and sees notes being sent to their software at each major phase. Build guides for the Core, Ain, and Aout modules would be handy (especially for the full up process on the core, right through uploading software). But I think MORE usefull might be a "now that you have this circuit board put together, what are all these pins for, and how to I hook a pot up to it?" type guide. Also, even the best of us get caught up in trouble-shooting. A basic no frills guide for each module would be extremely helpful. Finally,ALL of this information needs to be provided on a clean uncluttered page, in a step by step order, with big huge flashing green letters screaming out "newbies, start here! RTFM!!"

wow wow wow... marrage of two totally awsome hardware projects.. ;D tear.

Yeah! I hold out no pipe dreams that it is 100 percent SID sound.. BUT.. I can imagine mixing a set of SIDS and a set of swinSIDs.. could produce some interesting voices.. not to mention a few tricks impossible on a real SID.. and, notably, gives hope for people who cant get their hands on SIDs.. or... dare I say it, when they simply are no longer available.

ya the Plus 4 was ment to be a business machine.. It had 4 applications built in.. it sold like a brick. Still.. it had a better version of basic, and could do some screen tricks.. but not at all a game machine.

Hacking into the General purpose IO and I2C: http://www.byteclub.net/wiki/index.php?title=Wrt54g and http://www.allaboutjake.com/network/linksys/wrt54g/hack/ adding SD/MMC (I think up to 4 gigs) http://uanr.com/sdfloppy/ Dual Serial ports: http://www.rwhitby.net/projects/wrt54gs And the book: http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-WRT54G-Ultimate-Hacking-Asadoorian/dp/1597491667 I might just buy that book and ship it out here... would be great reading while on sabatacle.

I know most of those wireless routers have at least two serial ports inside, on the chip or even out to pads. One is generally used as a terminal by some hackers... I have even seen WRTs used as robot brains.. With some code bending, Im certain a midibox could be hooked up to one.. getting anything really usefull out of it would require quite a bit more code bending.. would make an interesting project: Wireless Midi server

The only rare component is the DAC.... surely there is a similar product out there that will do the job?

Puredyne looks promising.. for a couple of projects actually... DJ Linux packages?

Yeah, I was thinking about the same sorts of problems.. some tricky stuff goes down to that rely on strange properties of the SID... a software replacement likely wont function fully in that respect.. I was looking at it more of a new project though. The maker claims there are new features but nothing currently makes use of them.. well the Midibox/SID is the perfect platform to test that theory. Why not a special version of the mbSID for this chip that implements some of those special features? Really, the SID project would need to be altered to work with this device to get around some of those weird properties of the true SID that were taken advantage of. but 8 voices of this remake could be just as unique and amazing sounding.

I am not an audio guy actually.. Im electronics... So this question might be a no brainer: How well do these platforms (linux) and software handle VST plugins.. I know VST is supposedly universal.. but how much truth is there to that?

This is a good thread to keep around... I used Fedora a bit before I moved to Tokyo and I loved it. (unfortunately, I installed XP on my laptop to move with me.. simply out of the familiarity of it, and not wanting to go into panic mode far away from my software colletion). I am particularly interested in music tools quality and integration to Midibox on linux platforms. When I return, I have a project to build that will integrate the keystation and computer.. I dont want to put XP on it, but the user is familiar with Reason and the like. The first time I went searching for good linux software, I had no luck, but I didnt exactly know where to look either. Is there a good Tracktor-esque equivilent on Linux as well?

wow.. Id like to hear it... The version 2 has some new features.. I wonder just how compatable it really is.. it would make an interesting project mod for MidiboxSID.

well that would depend on which line you were in :P

you can very likely recover some or most of the data.... you could try bending the head arm up a bit.. risky since if you bend it too high it wont read the platter.. and If the MBR is on that surface, it will never find it, and call yet another drive failure.. but then, were also talking about micrometers.. so... it might take very little 'bending' to get it back in place?? Anyway, good luck.

BAH! I cant even claim that the K and X were close to each other.. How did I do that?! gha!! Yes yes TK went Tron.

Dont mess with Texus

DRS guys maintain an inventory of drives from nearly every make and model with the platters removed. They simply put your good parts (platters) into their core, or put a good part from their core (board) temporarily onto yours. Dead drives fall into 4 catagories: Drop click they do exactly what I just told you, and charge an arm and a leg. Bad board As exampled by Stryder and Sasha. The DRS swaps the board from either an identical model or one deamed 'similar enough' by the drive manufacturer and then back it up. this by far the easiest job. bad Motor/mechanical (heat damage) DRS swaps the platters into their identical or similar enough drive.. Can be accomplished with nothing more than a set of special driver bits, a simple alignment tool, and a hair net ;) Crash or 'death spiral' not much can be done for the scratched data paths but most of the other data is still recoverable. Swap the platters. One or more heads may need to be swapped as well. Collision with the platter often destroys the head. Most solutions involve swapping the platter. If the heads are out of alignment it is a bit easier to put the platters into a good drive then it is to replace/realign the bad heads. You usually have to remove the platters anyway to safely get the head out, but the platter can come out without touching the head. The more platters the drive has the more complex head removal becomes. If anyone has worked for a DRS I'd like to know if I have any of this incorrect.

This is why I keep my external bays on the floor ;) Im sorry I was late in seeing this, but I have had MANY successes in recovoring drives from the dreaded click start.. here is the general procedure: 1: buy a replacement drive.. you will only 'get it back once' so you need somewhere to immediately back it up too. 2: listen to the boot sound. the often described 'click state' is a common 'droped drive' failure. Essentially what is happening is one or more of the drive heads has come out of alignment and will no longer park in the head lock mechanism (it is actually clacking into the park slot, rather than slide inside). The drive will not allow reads (and thus boot) if the head is unparked during power up (it wont even spin up). So, it attempts several times to park the head before spinning up the platters (that way, if the platter gets scratched it is only a sector or two and not the whole platter in the spiral circle of death). 3: Prepare your work system. If this was your boot drive, you need to build up a completely working (booting) system, along with the required data space to back up what you want. 4: Plan ahead. Remember your drive structure, and what you want to save first.. prioritize what you will save in case you cant get it all.. For instance, go after the "My documents" folder first.. followed by photos, then large file size data like MP3s and video. 5: open the dead drive cover. Find a CLEAN area to work in. If possible, get some latex gloves. They are not mandatory, but a little extra precaution doesnt hurt. NEVER touch the platter!!!! The idea that you need a vacume state or a clean room is rediculous.. those are selling points of the data recovery 'specialists.' There really isnt anything special about it. Platter swapping is an easy job too but beyond the scope of the home user simply because A: you need a large stock of exact model drives to swap the platter into, and B: you need special screwdrivers and an alignment tool. You dont always need fancy screw drivers either, but a good set of precision drivers comes in handy. Dont Pry on the cover, you need it. Feel under labels for screws you may have missed. 6: general Inspection 95 percent of the time you will see the head sitting out over the platter.. this confirms your problem. Carefully inspect the the top platter. In fact, its the only one you CAN inspect. check for scratches or obvious damage. Also, when the cover comes off, you might find a small piece fall out.. this is part of the head lock mechanism. Watch for it.. and take the time to figure out how it goes back on. It just sort of sits there, so it likely wont stay in place as you play with the drive, but it needs to be in place when the cover goes back on. 7: move the head The opposite end of the head sits away from the platter. It is usually isolated from the rest of the drive, as the strong magnets are there. We are looking at the end of the arm opposite of the head.. from this end, carefully and slowly rock the head arm away from the platter, till it is on the edge of the platter. NEVER move the arm on the using the side of the pivot close to the platter.. the big chunky massive end where the magnets are is not going to bend under your fat sausage fingers ;) Now, with a bright light shining gown, watch as many heads as you can as you rock the heads off the platter. One or more may 'fall off' or 'snap off' the platter. These are your missaligned heads. If you are unlucky, you will have one or more. Unfortunately, there isnt much you can do to fix the problem. The precision needed to realign is impossible from home. Any data on the associated surface will be suspect or not available at all. If you are lucky though (and this is often the case) the heads fly just fine on the platter and never touch. If this is the case, you will be able to recover nearly all your data. 8: park it The head lock is a plastic piece that holds all of the heads in little slots. Often this is the only real failure of the drive.. some part is either broken or misalligned. Fortunately, all the drive knows about the head position is from feedback on the magnet, and one small mechism that latches. So, you can take one of two courses of action: Destructive or nondestructive. TRY nondestructive first. Non destructive: Simply place the head back into the lock cradle and replace the mechanical latch so that the head is 'locked.' you may need to help one or more heads into the cradle if it is misaligned. That is afterall the reason the drive failed. It couldnt push the head back into place. Manually test the release to make sure they heads fall out smooth and slip over the platter without crashing. again, you cant help it much if it scrapes a platter. Assuming it all looks good, re-park the head, replace any part of the mechanism that latches the head down (often this is a piece that falls out when the cover is removed but usually easy to figure out where it goes), and put the cover back on. Destructive: Remove the head park slots so that the head will float in open air where it should be parked. The feedback from the magnet coils 'should' assume the drive is parked but I cant verify this is true on every drive. If you are going to do it this way, you need to place the head, put the cover back, and connect and run the drive WITHOUT MOVING IT... thats sort of a tall order. Have your system in place, with cables pluged in. Leave the drive on the desk face up. 9: back it up Ok, so you have the drive back together. You now have one shot (not exactly that bad, but we will get to that ;) Plug it into a working system. A note: your system needs to be a fast booting machine, Not one that runs 300 extensions and virus scanners and whatever else. You are going to run the drive as a slave device. YOU MUST NOT ALLOW IT TO HAVE TIME TO GO INTO SLEEP MODE. Keep the drive active. The faster you can get into 'my computer' and backing up data, the better. so you boot up... now is the day of recconing.. if it shows up in my computer you are golden. Get in there and start copying as much as you can. Remember, if the drive is left inactive, it will attempt to sleep..sleep mode means it wants to park.. as soon as it realizes It cant park, it will call it dead, and you have to start from the beginning. If you get it working and see the drive, test a file.. read a text file or something from my documents.. or copy one file.. If this works, then you can repeat the whole procedure several times if need be to get all of the data you need. Just dont cause any NEW damage. Example: one platter has a scratch.. a few files will not read.. half way through backing up data.. so it hangs and crashes. Well, just perform the procedure again. Now, forget about those files, they are gone. Move on to the next chunk. Success stories: I performed this on a droped laptop size drive from my Creative mp3 player. The player could find any song and play it, but about half way through the song the drive went to sleep and it died.. I did the procedure again and this time backed up the entire drive by connecting the player to my desktop machine via usb and reading all of my songs out. I performed this on a friends laptop drive. In this case, I actually reinstalled the bootable drive into the laptop, and booted from the supposedly dead drive. I then immediately backed up all the data to an external full size drive. On reboot the drive continued to work fine, until the machine was left for a few minutes doing nothing (the drive was not completely power cycled, so it never made an attempt to park, thus it didnt 'fail' until it was unattended and attempted to sleep the drive). We installed a new laptop drive then copied the data back from the external bay. I did this twice on dead desktop drives but in both cases the platters were damaged and some files were corrupt, as well as some filenames being really strange.. 75-85 percent data recovery. But, these drives had also suffered heat damage. Note in all cases, the damaged drives could all perform normally untill the drive went to sleep or was completely power cycled. In almost all cases, the drive will survive multiple 'operations.' So, if you get part way through data recovery, you can try to perform the job again and get the next chunk of data. Hope this helps. and hey, in your mind, the data is gone.. so.. why not try it?

Building a box and extolling the virtues of the MB from the mountains (with sandstone commandments in hand?), as well as helping people solve problems (so TX doesn't have too) are also forms of contribution... but there is no substitute or cold hard cashish! ;)