[sdiy] DIY Roland M-64C cartridge ?

[Bob Weigel]

I've built an attempt at making an expander for the unit.  It...works to 
the degree that you can reliably store/retrieve patches from 16 banks of 
memory.  I used a Cypress chip..can't recall number..have more 
downstairs.  They are a bit of a battery hog though and you have to use 
a good sized rechargeable to really work a decent solution out on that 
one me thinks. 

PROBLEM WAS when you'd try to do a bulk dump, something funny would 
happen and I finally after building a second card and having the 
IDENTICAL problem (It's totally predictable.  It screws up the same byte 
of data the same way every time.  It's totally consistent.  Usually bank 
A on an MKS70 loads fine.  Then things start gradually corrupting into 
useless garbage) I threw my hands up.

But recently...I thought "Hey..MKS30 doesn't do bulk dump and they need 
a card like this even more! "  So I tested and it worked fine.   So I'm 
getting some packaging together to release that product.  A 16 bank 
switch PLUS I should enable the other two data lines that aren't used on 
the 16K cartridge interface that it uses so that it will hold 64 banks 
of sounds!

MKS30 is a great machine that lacks one thing everyone would like to 
have.  A way to store more than 64 sounds :-)  It'd be swell to have a 
machine that could just read/archive Roland cards for that matter.   
Hmmm.  I guess you could do it indirectly through an MKS70 though.  
Maybe just...after backing up the 70, load the sounds from the cartridge 
which would lack the 2 bits of course if the pins are compatible 
otherwise..hehe... then..just midi dump the data and on recalling it to 
the 70 and loading back onto the cartridge it might work?  I dunno. 
Haven't checked into that thought.. -Bob

Gil W. wrote:

>Is there any diagram/instructions existing for making a DIY Roland cartridge ?
>
>It seems like so many Roland vintage instruments use them...
>
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