Digits Revisited

[POLARIS at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

After much consideration, I think best/simplest solution was proposed
by Don:

>A far more practical approach is to just use BCD counters to address
>the SRAM, 11-bits counting from 000 to 799, wasting off a fraction of
>the memory.  Not enough for you?  Use larger SRAM, it's dirt cheap.

I think 800 notes is plenty, really; and this solution is by far the
easiest.  

There have some offshoots of this whole thing rattling around in my head,
such as: What to do with those extra 2 bits?  I'm only counting on
representing 5 octaves, so the last two bits could be used for something
else...like... sequenced portamento on/off message (you can have some 
notes glide and others not), or LFO on/off (also note/specific). This
could get really interesting with even more spare bits (LFO depth, env
mod, etc)

Also...how about a digital sampler?  If I can find a RAM with 16 bits
and 512K or more, I could make short CD-quality samples.  The clock
would be a high-freq version of the standard VCO, with standard 
1 Volt/octave response.  I could use cascaded 4-pole low-pass vcf's
for the sampling filtration.  Any reason why this couldn't be done?

Just a'wondrin'


Dave