Looking for a MIDI device to drive my laser harp

[shobley]

Hi,

I recently constructed a laser harp - see  http://www.stephenhobley.com/Site/content/view/36/55/.

At the moment it's being driven by a computer, I would like to add a PIC based component to drive MIDI on/off messages from the hi/lo inputs from the beam detectors.

I found this site - it looks like you have everything I might need, but there's so many different things to choose from...

Which one is best?

Thanks,

Steve

[Synapsys]

Hi Steve,

Using MIOS and a very simple hardware setup you could easily duplicate what the PC is now doing. You would need one core module and one DIN module stuffed with only one 74HC165 parallel to serial converter chip since you have only 8 inputs. MIOS scans the HC165 chip and calls a vector routine (USER_DIN_NotifyToggle) whenever the state of an input changes. A very simple application written in PIC assembler or SDCC C code could send out the appropriate MIDI message whenever the state of a beam detector changed.

Of course, if you do not want to write any code you could use the MIDIbox64 application to do what you want by just assigning the first SRIO chip as though it were connected to buttons and accomplish the same result.

Hope this helps....

Regards,

Synapsys