Cheap Thumbwheel Switches

[James Husted]

You can make a Sequencer with them. Take your standard analog sequencer
design and replace the output stage and pots with the thumb switches and a
DAC. Just clone the output section from a Pro-one. The Pro-one uses a 6-bit
note value if I remember correctly. You don't have to use all of them. I
have a bunch of BCD thumb wheels that I always toyed with using this way. If
you make PCBs for them you can use spares connected to a PCB edge card
connector (or any multi pin connector) and make a "preset" sequencer that
you can store favorite sequences you came up with on the thumb wheels. Have
a set of LEDs on the thumb wheel sequencer that show the binary note value
sent to the DAC, and cheap dip switches on the PCB preset cards that you can
program with the same values. That way a single clock section could run
multiple PCB slots. The only reason I never did it is I'm inherently lazy.
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James Husted
The ErsatZ Planet Graphics & Sound
james at ersatzplanet.com
www.ersatzplanet.com