[sdiy] Data transfer?

[Byron G. Jacquot]

>	Alright, I'm about to embark on my first full DIY project out of
>my home shop (not the work shop). It's essentially a digital oscillator
>similar to either PPG or Wavestation oscillators, and will be able to fit
>into a modular cabinet. One main feature of this unit is to give the user
>the ability to create his/her own wavesequences. The question I'm mainly
>interested in right now is: how should the user and data interface be
>implemented? Effectively, this module is going to have CV/Gate inputs and
>act like an analogue module, so how does one program a complicated
>sequence of waves and crossfade times into this beast and be able to
>transfer them around? I've thought about using CompactFlash, USB, even
>MIDI bulk dump (MIDI->CV converter comes for free on top of that), but no
>clean ways that don't look like either a Synergy or an old E-Mu memory
>module come to mind. Help! ;-)

A few ideas come to mind:

You might want a CV input for the wave crossfade...then a sequence of
crossfades could come from MIDI-CV, or any other modules.  I'd like to be
able to tweak it with an ADSR, at the very least.

Smartmedia is relatively easy to implement with a microcontroller...at least
to some degree.  The problem is that it want's to be written with a DOS
FAT-12 file system.  All of the desktop interfaces will probably prevent you
from doing direct block-level reads/writes.

There are some small 8-pin DIP EEPROMS that use a 3-wire interface.  You
could make data cartridges around them, then build a small burning station,
maybe RS232 to 3-wire...something akin to an EPROM burner or the old
Oberheim Prommer.  Or is that too close to a Synergy?

Byron Jacquot