Narwhal

would that be a call to MIOS_AIN_UnMuxed() ?

The only difference was that I had SM_Init() before MAX72XX_Init().

wilba: the encoder came for "free" in the Tascam tape remote. It was certainly a nice find. No detents.. it's smooth like butter and comes with a big knob that seems to be filled with a large mass of copper (it has some serious heft to it). woah.. you got me thinking. How much would this particular encoder cost if I people wanted it. The answer is $51.67 US not including the knob. Perhaps a bit out range, but I'm sure there are scrap items like the Tascam on ebay where it can be acquired. Thanks for the tips.. maybe I'll give it a shot today.

So today I decided to tackle control of the Max7219 LED controller. After much futzing around trying to figure out where the pins for Port C.0, C.1, and C.2 actually physically present themselves, I wired up power and the 3 control lines (LOAD/CS, Clk, DataIn) from the core to the MAX7219. Noting too fancy. I still routed all the wires through my ZIF socket and protoboard for simplicity. When I fired it up the first time.. NO LIGHTS! Doh. Continuity all test out fine. Frustrating. At a loss I decided to see if anything in code could be causing it. My first attempt I decided to move the location where I called MAX72XX_Init(). BINGO! That worked. Perhaps I can get an explanation for why the MAX72XX_Init() must be before the SM_Init() call for the scan matrix? One "problem".. with all the LED's lit, my LCD display became almost impossible to read. I had to turn up the brightness to max so I could read it. Seems like the LED driver may like to have it's own power regulator. Maybe I'll steal the regulator setup that was in the tascam originally. Hey this Midibox stuff is a piece of cake, I'm lovin it!! Thanks TK and everyone for all the work that's been done to get this system to the place it's at today. Hopefully I can contribute something useful for everyone soon. I have some ideas for improvements to the 72xx driver that I'm going to need for my next steps.

I have this Oak Grigsby/Electroswitch high resolution optical encoder that I'd like to use and I'm wondering what people think the possibilities of using this with MIOS are. I believe the normal encoders that most everyone here uses only have something like 22 PPR, and this one has 128 PPR. The encoder also has built in Schmitt triggers and needs +5v applied for it to work. The specs are located here: http://www.electro-nc.com/oak/p0104.pdf So I'm not really sure what the best way to hook this thing up is, or even if MIOS can deal with. Do I use some DIN inputs? Do I connect straight to the core? I'm thinking if it goes to a DIN, then the DIN doesn't need the pullup resistors because it already outputs voltages that are pulled up and pulled down, correctly.. or at least it appears that way to me? Thanks for the help Kurt

3) a) connected smashtv CORE to DIN to DOUT b) cabled DIN and DOUT to a ZIF connector on a breadboard. c) cabled ZIF to control surface cable adapter on a breadboard 4) searched around through the code repository for code that makes a button scan matrix work.. finally Stryd tipped me off that it was named sm_example. Can't we use long filenames!?! At least name the directory "Scan Matrix" 5) in main.c of sm_c_example1 I changed MIOS_SRIO_NumberSet(16) to MIOS_SRIO_NumberSet(1) because I only want to use one shift register right now. 6) I typed 'make' and let it build my project.hex file. A split second later uploaded project.hex to my core and walla! Hot button action.

2) spent a day debugging why 3 different core modules would only start up 10% of the time. I suspect a wiring issue with the LCD, but point to point continuity tests all showed that everything was fine each time I tested it. I still have no idea what was going wrong, but it's now working 100%.

Progress report: 1) built an adapter on protoboard so I could plug the control surface cable into a breadboard.. someone really should make something for this problem! There is no place on breadboards to plug in cables.

Woot! That's good news stryd. Apparently that was done for the stribe controller eh... This is going off topic, but look what I scored from ebay that will be my stribe-like project. I think I paid around $10 for it! Anyway, back on subject... I've attached a few files. First is zip file that contains a replacement maxim component library for eagle that has the missing MAX7219, and the schematic file I created. EDIT: note the left MAX7219 is not connected to any LED's because I'm seriously considering chopping it off. I don't want all those LED's where my sequencer panel is going. IMG_0237.JPG TascamMMRC_Upper.zip

So back in March I caught a post in the ebay thread about a Tascam MM-RC remote tape control. I thought, damn that looks like it might make something cool so I bought one for dirt cheap. It has a ton of nice buttons, led's, a hefty encoder wheel, and an LCD display. This past weekend I put in some time reverse engineering it and I thought I'd share what I've found. I've built a schematic for the upper control surface so far and I think it's going to be quite easy to make it do whatever I can dream up. I'm thinking either some sort of logic control, or perhaps even a sequencer. I'll post the schematic when I get home later. So lets start with the tear down pictures I've posted on flickr. Next step is going to be using a DIN module to read the buttons, and some code to talk to the MAX7219 LED controller. At that point I'll have full control over the upper control surface. Resize of P1010097.JPG Resize of P1010098.JPG Resize of P1010108.JPG

it works if you let the boomp3.com player play the file in the browser, but if you download it, it makes a file named just "download" that doesn't work heh

I'd listen to it, but the file is 0 bytes long.

Exactly what I said the first time I heard about them in the 80's. but seriously.. back on topic. The case is looking very nice Foona. Keep up the good work.

Nice cords, but they remind me too much of Stryper! hahahaha Sorry, I had to share that terrible piece of history. ::)

yes! I second that! more about the CNC! ;D I have the parts on order right now through LumenLabs.com to begin a CNC myself.

The Koala pad for the Apple ][ should be very easy to hack even without opening it. Perhaps equally so for the C64 version, but I'll speak about what I know. Years ago I remember opening my Koala pad (I believe screws were under the rubber feet and very easy to open) that I owned just around the time that I was first getting interested in electronics. I remember that the pad component itself was separate from a very small circuit board that had few chips on it (I think 1 or 2 at most). It seems to me this could be hacked from two directions: 1) open the pad and draw a circuit diagram and look up the data sheets on the chips inside. 2) Study the Apple joystick interface. Apple ]['s were extremely open devices long before anyone started touting open standards! I still have the original Apple motherboard circuit diagram that came attached in the back of one of the manuals. The process for reading the joystick was very well documented back in the day and often included descriptions of how the joystick circuit itself worked. I know the Apple ][ joystick port was a standard 16 pin dual inline socket on the motherboard and I believe that the axis values were measured using circuits that measure that charging times of capacitors as altered by the axis potentiometers. I'm certain I could scan you the joystick port (if the net doesn't already have this available) from the schematics and you'd then have the pinout and know where to apply 5V to make the pad give you a resistance.

I had one of those Koala pads exactly like that way back in my Apple ][ days! Just note: you had to use the "pen" with it because it wouldn't detect a fingers pressure.. though you could use your fingernail I remember it hurt. It liked a fair amount of pressure to detect position.

Looks very nice! I'd love to see some closer details of your knobs and light rings.

Seems like it could be done where its relatively spam free. Some kind of required syntax to the subject line perhaps. It's a shame that it relies on human interaction. I'm impatient and when I get the itch to write documentation, I like to add lots of pictures.

For some reason it didn't even occur to me that the email was @gmail.com. Of course it isn't automated.

How long does this magic usually take? I've given it 10mins so far. Are there any tricks to this emailing? Does the subject line help create a namespace or anything like that? Does my email address need to match some list that the receiver has?

Hi hopefully this is the right place to ask this.. I think I may need to have the upload permissions setup for me for the wiki. I've been writing instructions for XCode 3 and access via svn and I have several images ready to go, but the popup file manager window only allows me to select other peoples pictures. Thanks, Kurt

Welcome, As ilmenator stated.. if you are stuck on hammer action weighted keys it might be best to go for a ready made solution. The latest studiologic seems to be numbered 188 now. There is one for sale on eBay. Kurt

On my view of the layout that is shown above I don't see any trace going to the center pin of the voltage regulator (IC3) and there is no connection to the Bridge Rectifier - pin, it also looks like no connection to the - side of the Capacitor C5. I assume it is there somehow, as in the real board is different that this picture, or else you wouldn't have any power there. ??? I was just curious if you were aware of that or if somehow my eyes are failing me. ;D

Are there traces missing from the layout image above? I was just looking at the power section and it looks like a few things are missing.