[sdiy] What To Do With Old Computer Junk

[Andrew Martens]

> I have long wanted to be able to extract a clock from
> the MIDI F8 clock messages.

This is actually similar to part of a sequencer project that I have in the
works (one of my far-too-many projects underway).  The part in question is
essentially a microcontroller (with built in USART running at 31250 bps)
that watches for MIDI clock messages and toggles an output port
appropriately.  That's it.  If it actually works, I'll post schematics and
source code to it.  Hopefully it'll be a bit smaller than an old PC, too -
though with my construction abilities, you never know.

This is going to then be connected to a bunch of homemade MIDI pattern
sequencers.  I would've let them derive the clock signal themselves, except
(a) it allows me to offload something from about 5 different micros to just
one, and (b) I wanted them to support merging a MIDI input with their
generated sequences.  More information will be forthcoming about all this
crap when I get around to drawing up some schematics. :-)

All of this came about when the free laptop I was going to use as a pattern
sequencer didn't materialize (almost, but not quite), and I wanted to use
the MIDI clock on my Boss DR-202 drum machine (don't laugh) to synchronize
some self-built pattern sequencers.  Should be fun controlling patterns (for
live performance) on 7 different MIDI channels from a big rack of
switches...

Cheers,
Andrew Martens