TheAncientOne

The caterpillar track bit was like this: I was going to use the belt 'inside out, with my finger moving the track bit, the end rollers were going to be just plain idlers to keep it in tension, and the encoder was going to be underneath on the outside, so to speak, being driven by the teeth. With a 2mm pitch belt, and 24 PPR encoders you'd get about 50 pulses in 100mm, so I did think of an optical encoder. You can print the segments onto acetate with an ink jet, if you want to do this with thicker plastic, use one of those printers with a CD adapter, it's not the best solution, but it does work. I pulled some very fine pitch stainless disc encoders out of some broken DLT drives, and there may be similar alsewhere. What is needed is a design that can be easily made using minimal tooling, or could be bulk made very cheaply. The toothed belt seemed like a start to a COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) solution. I still like the idea. Mike

I've just gone around in a complete circle and found out that there is a very cheap way of doing this: The JDM programmer will read them! All it needs is a small adapter to the Bankstick plug in. The IC-Prog software apparently supports it too. If anyone is interested, I'll try and work up a (vectorboard based) layout for a bankstick only reader/writer Mike ('TheProf')

I've done a few things like this, whilst making stage props. For prototyping you could buy a piece of the 'bendy MDF' which is 6mm MDF with spline slots on the back it will simply bend to shape, but has little structural strength. It might be useable if back filled with a reasonable resin once on place, but I personally wouldn't want to risk all the effort. It would be better than card though. For a wood panel I'd go with the layers of veneer or very thin ply. In my case I made formers by stacking 'bread and butter' sections of 18mm MDF, all sized from a template with a router using a guide. The template was pinned to the sections through 10mm holes, drilled first through another, metal template, and the final stack done by using lengths of 10mm threaded rod through the whole lot. A run over with the sander smoothes the whole, (heavy!), thing off. I was doing a short production run, so perhaps for a simple panel you could freehand it. I used a slow setting glue, I had some Aerodux, (cheap due to being government surplus), but there are variants. This gave me plenty time to get all the sticky bits lines up and clamped. For clamps we used bits of scrap slotted angle ('Dexion'), some bits of scrap softwood, and yet more threaded rod, (also known as 'studding;). Trick is to start at the middle of the curve and work outwards. Sadly, I've not got any pictures. Remember to cross grain the plys! HTH Mike

Been thinking about SID box layout a lot too. I think it might be neat to use a real rack module case (I've got some old ones), and make the SID modules plug into a backplane of sorts. It wouldn't need many pins on the connectors, and would allow me to bring the unit up one module at a time. I was figuring on using indirect connectors, and using a piece of alloy the size of a long eurocard, with the Core and SID just mounted as usual. It might be worth vamping up a 'module activity light on the slaves. Another slightly mad thought is the idea of making the control surface in a thin case that acts as a 'lid' to the module rack. It could then hinge down for service. I'd of course put the DIN and DOUT modules in the back of the control surface Hmmm - has anyone got ideas as to the maximum working length of the cables to the control surface? Might be cool to have a surface that lived on the rack unit, but could be unshipped and used as a console for live jamming. Some old disc drive magnets would make a great hold down.

They were from a games shop, and had no power supplies or extras, just tested consoles, (fine by me!). He wanted £15 carriage, though I think I have a friend who can collect. Just hoping that the later ones have 8580's in them. I'd sent message to all my old computer world friends asking for damaged or unwanteds too, so if I get the 'bus' effect, I'll put the surplus in the swap shop. Best wishes Mike

I've just bought 7 C64's on ebay for £25. (no power supplies but working). Yay! enough SID's at last. Sorry folks I just had to brag to someone..... Mike

I may be well behind the times, and this may be old hat, but this guy: http://myhdl.jandecaluwe.com/doku.php/projects:phoenixsid_65x81 is doing a SID emulation in FPGA. I coudl see the possibility for an entire SID module on a chip here. The MyHDL stuff is quite inspiring too. Mike

Nice catch! Seems like you're now geared for 2 SID's, an FM and a control surface with a few spares... MIke

http://snipurl.com/14ffm Just in case anyone down under wants them. They're 24 pps. plastic spindle, buy it now at $55 AU for 50, plus $5 carriage in Oz. Mike

I'd try their Australian agents - you might even manage sample price if you make a the right approach. Control Devices Australia Pty Ltd Level 6, Westfield Towers, 100 William Street , Sydney . NSW 2000 T: 0061 2 9368 7100 F: 00 61 2 9368 7199 E: sales@controldevices.net Hope this helps Mike

This company have some useful stuff. http://www.devcon.com/products.cfm I used their aluminium filled castable epoxy on a few occasions. The black 'flexane', (sadly they're in the Henry Ford colour scheme club), makes very good moulds. I made some large data wheels to replace some missing ones on an old lighting desk, years ago. I simply put the one good one into a former, and make a mould off it, I then cast two new ones out of the resin, cast around a machined core - I had the cores knurled by the machine shop to get a good grip. They lasted the desk out. I saw some controls on a lighting desk last year, that were a sort of translucent 'caterpiller track' / belt, in the desk top, with an LED stack inside. For a cheaper version, perhaps a toothed belt, reversed, running over two small pulleys on a bracket made from alluminium angle. One pulley an idler, the other driving a non detented encoder, or possibly some kind of salvaged opto slotted/relective encoder. Put an LED stack alongside and we've bred ourselves some hybrid fader/datawheel. I'll have a look at this if I can remember the supplier of cheap toothed belts. Mike

<evil whisper mode> Hey we got what you want . . . . http://www.traxsys.com/staticProductListing.asp </evil whisper mode> A bit pricey, but work just like a pair of encoders, and they even do versions with switch panels, an illuminated one, and they panel mount. I've used them in industrial control systems where mice last about 2 hours. One is claimed to work even if it's full of sand. Hope this is useful Mike

Maplin in th UK have this stuff called Quantum Tunnelling material available as small pads and as cable, see: http://snipurl.com/13hix It goes from virtually open circuit (10E12 Ohms) to a very few Ohms with pressue. They say it's good for 1,000,000 operations too. I know a version is used in high end perimeter security systems, but it might work for your application. I fancied it for the action in some home made buttons. If you're going to 'sensor' the stairs, you'd have to try some of the old 'Slinky' toys. Best wishes Mike

This might be useful, though it's not free. http://www.microsys.ro/memplus.htm Philips did a parallel port to I2C design, that used a few reistors and one TTL chip. The link below is to one on the 'Elektor' site - I know it works: I've got one, though I think you might need the hardware driver DLL under Windows 2000 or XP - I've not checked out the software for a while. I think it's the same as the Philips with a few add ons. http://www.elektor-electronics.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=27&art=51085&PN=On Hope this helps Mike

I've been thinking along similar lines for a while. A sequencer needs to have twiddle-ability, but I like the idea of one of those sequencers whcih can do complex stepping and counting. I'm not thinking of a live performance unit that much. I would call this concept a hybrid - a control surface to twiddle with and screen based logic control for patching and display. There are a few real time systems that will run on a PC, (sadly the free QNX is no more), but a Linux RTOS, with a X front might do the job. One other thought might be to try the free Oberon system from ETH Zurich, which has a lot of panel 'widgets' built in, and do run time type checking of modules. I was thinking along the lines of an 'appliance' type device, made from a redundant PC, in much the same way as firewalls like 'Smoothwall', or some of the GPL NAS (Network Attachable Storage) units, work. In effect a recycled PC that booted straight into sequencer mode. There would be no trouble with patch/sequence storage, and a clean kernal woudl run fast on a quite basic machine. When you think what could be done on an Atari.... I did a cruder version of this with BBC micro, one version of which is still running as a light controller, (you could put programs in EPROM and they would run after boot). Sadly the BBC is only a 2MHz 6502, so is not up to the job of a modern sequencer with a control surface, but will do a reasonable bit of MIDI playing. In the UK they can still be picked up at fleamarkets, though that is changing. Unlike their rivals they had a very good structured basic, with an assembler, built in, and a fully documented operating system with proper entry points and alterable vectors. The UMI as used by Vince Clarke, among many others ran on them. They had good expansion ports too. The sound chip was nothing like a SID though: a rather sad TI SN76489, with all the fancy envelope stuff done in software. There was a box called 'Music 500', later 'Music 5000' which had digital oscillators and ran off the machines 1Mhz bus, driven initially by a FORTH like language called 'AMPLE', though this was rare and the original version about a user friendly as a hungry guard dog. <<The 'you are rambling' warning light has just come on!>> BTW: If anyone has an interest in BBC/retro thing, I've got a few spares. Swaps or free to a good home. Mike

Just been digging through my parts archive, remebering I once did some games machine repairs. I've found 6 x 8910, and 2 x 8912. Shall I put them up on the fleamarket - would negotiate a swap for SID's. Best Wishes Mike