FW: RS-232, MIDI and SCSI; oh my!

[David Halliday (Volt Computer)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	David Halliday (Volt Computer) 
> Sent:	Thursday, April 24, 1997 12:00 PM
> To:	'don at till.com'
> Subject:	RE: RS-232, MIDI and SCSI; oh my!
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Don Tillman [SMTP:don at till.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, April 24, 1997 10:27 AM
> To:	synth-diy at horus.sara.nl
> Subject:	RS-232, MIDI and SCSI; oh my!
> 
> Guys, this discussion is going off like a pachinko machine on Jolt
> Cola -- folks are rattling off random technologies without any
> direction.  ("Neural nets!  Lasers!  Dilithium crystals!  Harness the
> solar wind!")
> 
> 
> Or like a Ferret on a double mocha...  <g>
> 
> 
> 
> I mean really, SCSI is only useful for sending *blocks* of data
> between a small number of devices.  It's pretty inappropriate for
> controlling a synth, and it can't be compared to RS232 or MIDI in any
> way.  
> 
> But...  The use of SCSI ( or RS-232 or MIDI ) would be to send the
> configuration and paramater data to the digital synthesizer and for
> this, I think that it would be perfect...  Closer to the source would
> be a way of putting it...
> 
> Say that the synth data is on a hard disk and you want to load a new
> patch.  You can go from the hard disk, to the controller, to the
> motherboard, to the UART chip, through the RS-232 port through the
> current-loop conversion to MIDI and to the control pod to be
> decomposed back into the control signals for the DSP
> 
> ---OR---
> 
> You can get the data from the hard disk, ( either (E)IDE or SCSI ),
> move it through the bus ( for (E)IDE only ) to the SCSI controller and
> move it in paralell chunks of data to the control pod.
> 
> Faster, asynchronus and more bandwidth...
> Also, the better SCSI cards have on-board smarts so the computer can
> say: take this 4.7Meg waveform data file from LUN#2 and move it to
> LUN#7 amd then go and do something else while the SCSI card is taking
> care of that transfer.
> 
> 
> Another thing ( will he *ever* shut up! <grin> ) is that since we
> *are* talking about the potential to do large wave tables and some
> sampling, the idea of disconnecting from the computer and pluging in a
> ZIP or JAZZ drive makes the unit really attractive from a performance
> point of view.  
> Do they make MIDI ZIP drives?  Nope!
> 
> 
> Before talking about specific hardware implementations it would make
> sense to take a deep breath and think about exactly what sort of
> controlling you want to do, now and in the future.  
> 
> We don't know so we might as well go for the fastest of the cheap
> mature standards.
> SCSI capability can be added to a PC clone for $50 - it already comes
> with Macs
> There are tons of SCSI support chips out there so the wheel will not
> need to be re-invented.
> You can chain devices - want three controllers?  Check their addresses
> and daisy chain them together.
> 
> Fun stuff!