jjonas

Hi, I have swinSIDs only on slave core 02. I performed the firmware cloning operation, but the situation is still the same as previously. One separate question about cloning: as 8580 and 6581 have their own hex files, how come it doesn't hurt (or does it) to clone the one uploaded to the master core (which has e.g. 6581s) to the slaves as well, when the slaves might have 8580s..?

Hi, thanks for the confirmation that this is what is to be done. Based on this newfound conviction I double-checked what I had done, and indeed I had only edited the setup_8580.asm but not the setup_6851.asm in addition. Now that I edited also the latter, recompiled and uploaded it, the new options appear, and I can also choose the extra waveforms (called Ns1-7). BTW is it necessary to update only the master core, or also the slaves? However now the question is what the new options do, and how the new waveforms operate. It doesn't seem to be covered in the MBSID manual (there's a swinsid review there though). With a 6851 the new waveforms don't make a peep (not a big surprise there), but with a swinSID the new waveform sounds are the same as they are with a 8580 - they sound like the normal noise waveform. Changing the SwM and SwP variables doesn't do anything. Is there something else I still need to do? For example do the jumpers on the swinSID matter? I have them both removed. Thanks!

Hi, there's two entries in setup_[8580/6851].asm (rc38) on swinSID-related options: ;; 0: SwinSID extensions disabled ;; 1: SwinSID extensions enabled #define DEFAULT_ENABLE_SWINSID 1 ;; 0: only waveform 0-8 selectable ;; 1: waveform 0-15 selectable (e.g. for selecting additional SwinSID Waveforms) #define DEFAULT_ENABLE_UPPER_WAVEFORMS 1 I have three cores in my MBSIDv2: core00 with 6581s, core01 with 8580s and core02 with swinSIDs. I've updated cores 00 and 02 (maybe only 00 would have been necessary?) with the recompiled hex with above modifications, but I'm not able to choose swinSID waveforms. Is there other stuff I need to do apart from changing these two lines? In the wiki a search for "swinsid" yields only one entry that mentions it, but even that doesn't really deal with the matter itself: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=changing_the_order_of_items_in_menu_pages However based on this it looks like two new entries should appear in the OSC menu if swinSID is enabled, but that doesnt' happen. Am I missing something?

Success!!! Thanks!

Thanks for the replies! By MBSID application do you mean setup_6581.hex and setup8580.hex..? If so, I'm not sure of everything I need to do in order to compile the modified source successfully. I guess I have all the raw material from the midibox_sid_v2_0_rc38.zip, but from there on I'm not completely sure what I have to do. There's some advice in http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/application_development, but the most detailed advice seems to be for Windows, and I'm on Ubuntu 11.10. I have installed sdcc and gputils. Do I need to have MIOS sources as well (From http://svnmios.midibox.org/listing.php?repname=svn.mios&path=%2Ftrunk%2Fmios%2F)? Or if not, what is the advice for Ubuntu 8.04 referring to with MIOS_PATH="/YOUR/PATH/HERE/mios/trunk" MIOS_BIN_PATH="/YOUR/PATH/HERE/mios/trunk/bin" MIOS_SHELL="/bin/bash" There's a lot of stuff in the folder of the unzipped midibox_sid_v2_0_rc38.zip, how will make know what to do..? You bet these won't be the last questions, but thanks for your patience :-)

Hi, I tried searching the forum for "button press delay", but didn't find an answer to my question, so here goes: My problem is that sometimes (too often) when I release a pressed button, the MBSID takes the release as a button press as well. I guess this has to do with the mechanical property of the springy buttons, so I was wondering if there is something I could do software-wise - basically change some number in a line of code, as I cannot really code anything myself - to increase the delay between button presses so that when the contact disc in the button is springing up and down during release, the MBSID would not interpret these as a button press. I don't know how much this delay is at the moment, but taking as reference ladyada's arduino button tutorial, a millisecond would seem like an ok delay..? http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/lesson5.html (section 'Brooklyn Debounce')

Hi, for those of you who know more about the SID, is there a good patch in the preset patches to test whether the SID filters are working properly? I found out recently that the filters of one of my 6581s are not working, i.e. it goes silent when you put the filters on, but works fine as long as they're off. Is it enough to test them with any filter setting, or can there be more subtle and devious faults that can be revealed only by certain settings?

I have the output of all the SIDs going to R and L mono jacks which I connect to a multitracker for recording purposes, but it was too cumbersome to mess with the multitracker set up just to play with and test different sounds (i.e. most of the time), so I built in a stereo earphone jack parallel to the R and L jacks and a global volume knob (10k log) for it so that I don't need to connect anything external to the MBsid (apart from earphones) in order to use it. For this kind of use there's no need for extra amplification, in fact without the volume knob it was too loud and I needed the knob to be there to lower the volume.

Personally I wasn't aware that Retro-Donald's design should be improved, so I too am interested in orange_hand's suggestions; myself I can't really design anything too complicated, even though I can read schematics ok and implement other people's projects. Retro-Donald's design seems better than the C64 original though. Here's what I built. From the outside: ..and inside. The toroid is under the rubbish PCB.

Here's two pics of and old PSU which I opened to see whether you could build a new one inside it. Verdict: not really. Here's the "transformer side". The regulator is mostly inside the glue or whatever, so in practice it cannot be replaced. The fuse is on the mains side. Here's the PCB. Check out the rectifier :-) I built myself a new one out based on a toroidal transformer I found at work, and retro-donald's design (http://www.retro-donald.de/pages/hardware/basteleien/powernetzteil.php). The toroid puts out almost 11VAC per coil (nominally 9VAC), so there's a lot to regulate after rectification (15VDC->5VDC); the total power consumption of a 4-core MBSID is about 18-19W, and the cooling element of the regulator gets very hot (you can't touch it longer than a few seconds after half an hour). I also had to put a small cooling element on the regulator inside the midibox which regulates 16VDC->9VDC, which doesn't get too hot though. (Will send more pics when I get home!) The regulator I used can take 2A, and according to my measurements a 4-core MBSID with completele control surface doesn't exceed 1,5A (on the 5VDC side); I guess I'm going to consider a bigger cooling element just to make it sure.

Hi, just for the sake of information (and hey, isn't sciencific progress about independent verification of testable hypotheses ;-), I had similar kind of problems, and it helped me too just to reflash the firmware; I reflashed both the MIOS and 6851.hex, so I'm not sure which one of them was the critical one, but anyway it helped.

Last weekend I taught myself to use the drum and bassline engines of MBSID, and this was the outcome.

Problem solved! Apparently it was a matter of one solder bridge in one of the 8580 SID modules. Earlier I think though that I couldn't get either of the 8580s working even separately, but never mind :-)

The good news is that the slave core (and I think the MBNet connections) are working properly; I tried the master core's 2x6581 set with the slave core, and they work ok. So effectively that narrows the problem down to the slave core's 2x8580 set. The bad news is that when I try the 2x8580 set with the master core, it produces the following result: when switching the MBSID on, the display is all random garble (and no start-up sound). Pressing the buttons and turning the datawheel seem to do something besides producing more random garble on the screen, I think the functionalities do work: e.g. I memorized the button-datawheel combinations of how to get to the 'produce random sound' screen, and the lights on the CS change in an expectable manner when I execute the 'generate random sound' thing. But still no sound. What I'm wondering is whether this description can give some clues to those with a higher level of consciousness as to what the problem might be :-) I'll keep working on it though, and report back if there's any progress.