simple MIDI?

[The Dark force of dance]

Y-ellow Y'all.
        
At 06:14 AM 1/21/98 -0600, John Simonton wrote:

>Some year ago I posted a schematic of a thing with a 6850 and a couple of
>hex inverters that sent program change status and data. It went to the
>music machine archives at hyperreal but I don't know if it's still there or
>not. The problems is, I haven't seen a 6850 or seen one for sale in a long
>time.

Well I reckon I might just have some. Bought at some kinda fire sale some
time ago. Big aspirations but I have to concede I'm just not a motorola
head. I've also got some 6402s and AY3-1015s. Somewhere! Just out of
interest. They are the same chip btw. However if you're out hunting for
these things, there is a much improved part. The  AY5-1015. Did I get that
part number right? I kinda gather that the 6402/AY3 parts are a bit hit or
miss if they'll work at MIDI speeds.

>>The worst things about CPUs is that they often aid bad programmers in
>>being just bad programmers... it is allways so easy to fix broken
>>programs rather than make a deep thougth on how to make them work the
>>first time instead... ah well...
>>
>I beg your pardon :-? C'mon Magnus, you can really imagine all the things
>that can go wrong at the outset of a project? I agree with you about
>patching, of course. It's hard to pull out big chunks of code and throw
>them away, but "old-timers" know that the working code that replaces it
>will probably be a lot tighter. 

The thing is. What happens when you're vero boarding a project and your
hardware is in error? Like my 723 problem. Then you gotta chuck all that
work out and start again if you can't just re-wire it. And it's a lot harder
than just flinging a bit of code around.

The approach to coding is that you get the basic system working. Pull it up
and get the leds to flash. Then you make it do one function after another
moulding the code into shape like modeling clay until you get what you want.
Start by flashing that LED and eventually that code will evolve into your
entire LED service routine. And the big advantage is that you often have
better ideas along the way. It's a lot easier to change the code when you
get a better idea than it is to change the hardware.

>It's about learning and the errors are the teachers.

Well put John. Look I'm the world's worst coder. The errors have been my
only teacher. I'm a hardware head and I can't even write basic programs but
you do what you gotta do. For me. One ATMEL chip can replace a whole board
full of hardware and I can reconfigure it at will. Ok It's not Altera or
Xilinx but it's certainly affordable. And it's not like I don't have to ask
for help on these things when I can't figure out why a thing isn't doing
what I thought it should but that's what the NET's all about. We're all
happy to help if we can. Think of it as an adventure!

Be absolutely Icebox.
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