[sdiy] Software problem hardware solution? + US patents

[greg montalbano]

Good point;  and this may be a good time to point out the usefulness of 
multiple machines in general.  I used to drive myself over the edge trying 
to come up with ONE computer to handle household needs, email, sequencing, 
patch editing, etc etc etc -- these days I have two cpus in my studio (a 
mid-level PC for patch editing & scope, and an Amiga for sequencing), and 
old 386 in my garage shop for EPROM burning and support of synths I'm 
servicing -- and they're ALL separate from the household machine.  If space 
is not an issue, this is definitely a good way to go -- and as Scott points 
out, hella cheap.

~GMM

At 08:40 AM 10/10/02 +0000, Scott wrote:
>This is exactly what old PCs are for.  I've used CPUs as old as 286/12 with a
>cheap ISA MIDI card.  Some rather simple C or Assembly code does this job
>easily.
>
>To this point, I've written a program that adds portamento to a Roland D-110
>(or any other bender capable digital synth) which does not support it
>normally.  The program calculates the correct pitch bender numbers and uses
>the same note on value for all notes, sending the bender number to get the
>correct pitch.  When a new key is pressed, a stream of calculated evenly
>spaced bender messages are sent to glide the note from where it is to the new
>value.  If this much can be done with a 286/12, then surely something that
>simply modifies the velocity value is trivial by comparison.
>
>Using an old, otherwise discarded PC this way effectively recycles it and
>keeps it out of the landfill.  These days, many of us have even low end
>pentiums laying around.  I've been able to get these machines in working
>condition for free just by asking around.