Guest pkstone Posted February 28, 2003 Report Share Posted February 28, 2003 Hi all,This is my first post on this forum, but I have been studying all the aspects of Thorsten's excellent Mbox work for weeks now. You may skip to the bottom if you don't want to read my long-winded intro. :)I'm rebuilding a custom controller called the "Axe Thing" that I built in the late 80's (see http://www.spacecase0.com/phil/axething.jpg for a picture (but beware, it's about 700K!) :)The old Axe Thing used a 6502 computer and a hand-wired MIDI interface to scan the 32 touch switches along the neck and send them out as (fixed-velocity) MIDI note messages. Its trackball (and the three keyboard-style switches on the "horn" plugged directly into the Commodore Amiga's gameport; the MIDI notes and trackball info fed into and controlled custom music software I developed on the Amiga.I have (reluctantly) moved on from the Amiga over the last few years; however, I have also found great joy in using Reason in live performance, so I have hit on the idea of redesigning the Axe Thing to use as a Reason controller. I'll be scanning the trackball's encoders directly (in addition to the neck touch switches), adding a joystick, a few knobs and extra switches, led's, and, I hope, a piezo percussion sensor - as in the eDrum.The MBHP will be my inspiration for the hardware, though I will probably wire a custom version of it to fit in the small space I have available. MIOS looks like the way to go with the firmware - what an excellent design! I'm a newbie to PIC programming (though studying hard and learning fast), but it looks like Thorsten has done all the hard work and organized things in a very easy-to-use format.My question (FINALLY!): it looks like I'll need to build the programmer in order to get the bootstrap code into the PIC18F - is that correct? After that's done, I can just reprogram using MIDI?Thank you for your excellent work, and your generous help, Thorsten.Phil Stone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pkstone Posted March 2, 2003 Report Share Posted March 2, 2003 OK, I think I see how it works now. I was confused because the first time I downloaded the MIOS binary and html docs, the archive didn't expand correctly (using PKUnzip). With WinZip, I got all the files correctly, including the mios_v1_0.syx file, which I couldn't find before. So, I think I've solved the "text adventure" :) , to work with MIOS, I'll need to build a core module, build a JDM programmer, burn the bootstrap code into the PIC, upload mios_v1_0.syx via MIDIOX, and then upload some app. code.Piece of cake! :) I can't wait to get started.Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven_C Posted April 13, 2003 Report Share Posted April 13, 2003 Wow! looks like a lot of inginuity in that thing!good luck with your midibox adventures! ;Dbye from Steve, btw, thanks for helping me understand how to load bootstrap etc!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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