[sdiy] Ralph Deutch and the darker side of the Moon! Casio chips! Re: Much Ado About Almost Nothing

Sat Dec 18 07:52:54 CET 2010

> Scott Nordlund
> Från: Scott Nordlund <gsn10 at hotmail.com>
> owned by Allen Organ, so that may be why the guy knew of
> them), but I doubt Casio's implementation infringes on the
> Ralph Deutsch patents. 

Right, seams they circumvented the patent by not including the ROM readout.

http://www.firstpr.com.au/rwi/casio/Casio-931-2006-06-17.txt

Some of Ralphs patents are hilarious, like 250 pages!! :)

KD

> Kopia: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Datum: lördag 18 december 2010 10:55
> 
> I think I'd read that Robin Whittle post years ago.  Turns
> out the Casios don't use Walsh functions that I know of
> (though the RMI Harmonic Synthesizer actually does; RMI was
> owned by Allen Organ, so that may be why the guy knew of
> them), but I doubt Casio's implementation infringes on the
> Ralph Deutsch patents.  
> 
> You can see the inside of the Allen Digital Computer Organ
> here (with suitably dorky narration): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YomV2dSNGLg
> 
> Apparently organs were only the second consumer application
> of ASICs after calculators (both of these were initiated by
> Rockwell).
> 
> ----------------------------------------
> > Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:18:09 +0000
> > From: dalenkarl at yahoo.se
> > Subject: Ralph Deutch and the darker side of the Moon!
> Casio chips! Re:[sdiy] Much Ado About Almost Nothing
> > To: gsn10 at hotmail.com
> > CC: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> >
> > Great reading! Thanks Scott!
> >
> > The part about Ralph Deutsch involvements, patent
> agent
> > etc, would fit Harrys request like a glove! :)
> >
> > His son Leslie seams to be a real thinker to!
> >
> > What a expericence to get a core patent debunked
> > and 46 others who built upon that single one!
> >
> > After some research i found among many things this:
> > http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/music-dsp/2000-October/039363.html
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Regarding digital musical instrument patents, around
> 1981 when I began
> > modifying the Casio M10, I met a chap who was the
> agent here for Allen
> > digital organs. These were serious "pipe organ" like
> things for
> > churches, full of Rockwell LSI chips with round metal
> chip covers, black
> > plastic packages with quad inline staggered leads.
> >
> > He assured me that Allen had licensed a patent, by one
> Ralph Deutsch (if
> > I remember correctly, and I haven't thought of it for
> 18 years or so)
> > which was for a musical instrument which worked by
> storing a digital
> > representation of a waveform in its memory. He showed
> me the patents -
> > I may still have copies somewhere.
> >
> > He was intrigued by the Casios - the first production
> digital
> > keyboards. He was convinced they used a curious form
> of synthesis, the
> > name of Walsh Functions - some mathematical
> abstraction of little
> > obvious importance - because he was sure that Casio
> would not want to be
> > caught out on Allen's worldwide patents.
> >
> > The Casio M10 chip and its siblings in the MT-30,
> MT31, CT-201 (the very
> > first Casio - 4 octaves, full size, two chips with
> different waveforms)
> > work by generating complex 16 step waves (I assume
> this from what I know
> > about a later chip I describe below), eight notes at a
> time. The waves
> > are made of two component waveforms and there is crude
> envelope control
> > over each. The sum of the 8 waves appears as a 14 bit
> binary number at
> > a sampling rate of about 500 kHz. This means nice,
> crisp, non-aliased
> > high tones! The DAC was inverters driving a R-2R
> resistor array for 12
> > bits and a few resistors for the least significant 2
> bits. There was no
> > sample and hold - just an op-amp - so timing anomalies
> in the bits from
> > the chip and the inverter slew rates caused spikes
> when the wave went
> > from 10000x to 01111x.
> >
> > The waveforms were pretty crude and of course made of
> stair-steps. The
> > signal went through a switchable analogue LPF - but my
> mods bypass
> > that. I even made a super-low glitch tweaked dual 14
> bit DAC mod board
> > for the CT-202, using the standard Casio R-2R network
> and some extra
> > resistors, trimpots and judiciously clocked HC174
> latches so the rising
> > and falling edges were symmetrical.
> >
> > Later, in 1982, Casio produced a similar sounding
> MT-65 and its
> > full-size equivalent. The sound chip in this is a 42
> pin custom LSI
> > which has its note playing and waveforms loaded into
> it by an external
> > CPU and software. Around then, I figured out the
> protocol for talking
> > to the chip and wrote a C program (BDS-C for Z80 CPM)
> to write waveform
> > data to the chip via the parallel port of a Big Board
> I.
> >
> > The reason I mention the Casio is that the chip (the
> NEC D931) did not
> > actually receive, or apparently store, waveforms. It
> received and
> > stored *increments* - and used these steps to generate
> the waveform. If
> > your increments did not add up to 0 then all sorts of
> trouble occurred!
> >
> > Let me look into my archives . . In less than a minute
> I found the
> > patent!
> >
> > US Patent Office 2 June 1970 Patent 3,515,792
> >
> > Ralph Deutsch, Sherman Oaks Calif. assignor to North
> American
> > Rockwell Corporation.
> >
> > A digital electronic organ wherein a digital
> representation of
> > an organ pipe wave shape is stored in a memory. A
> frequency
> > synthesiser activated by a manual or pedal key
> produces a
> > clock frequency at Nf, where f is the frequency of the
> note
> > selected, and N is the number of sample points of the
> stored
> > wave shape. The digitized wave shape is read out
> repetitiously
> > at the generated clock frequency and converted to
> analog form
> > to produce a musical note having a waveshape
> corresponding to
> > that stored in memory. Circuitry is provided to sum
> digitally
> > notes which are played simultaneously; to shape each
> note in
> > attack and decay using digital operations; and to read
> out
> > stored multiple wave shapes to implement harmonic and
> > mutation stops.
> >
> > There is no mention in the prior art of computer
> software generation of
> > music - though I guess no-one had used a computer to
> make an *organ*.
> >
> >
> > Using increments (albeit simple +/- 1, +/- 2 +/- 4 +/-
> 8) was probably
> > harder than simply storing the waveform, and led to
> less flexibility
> > than a stored waveform - but I figure that Casio did
> it so they didn't
> > have to worry about the Allen patent. So the dull
> force of patent law
> > made a popular instrument more awkward, or at least
> more idiosyncratic.
> >
> > I just found my doco file for the chip in the MT-65 -
> the D931. All the
> > guff is there on how to talk to it. I have C-code as
> well - and 8 D931
> > chips, seven unused. I was able to load novel
> waveforms into the D931
> > in my MT-65 it and then play it from the MT-65's CPU
> via its keyboard,
> > or the MIDI interface I added. I also made up a second
> D931 on an
> > external board with an independent clock source so I
> could have two
> > waveforms and detuning.
> >
> > A web search for:
> >
> > "Ralph Deutsch" and patent
> >
> > leads to:
> >
> > http://www.allenorgan.com/book/jbook.htm
> >
> > where there are two blank pages, entitled:
> >
> > Honoring the Intellectual Property of Others
> > Ralph Deutsch and the Dark Side
> >
> > amongst a lot of other similarly empty pages referring
> to patent
> > litigation. The author is Allen Organ founder Jerome
> Markowitz, who
> > died in 1991. He had been dabbling in electronic organ
> patents since
> > the 1930s. I have some patents of his here, from 1973,
> on internal
> > plumbing inside digital organs.
> >
> >
> >
> > - Robin
> >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> > --- Den fre 2010-12-17 skrev Scott Nordlund :
> >
> > > Från: Scott Nordlund 
> > > Ämne: Re: [sdiy] Much Ado About Almost Nothing:
> Man's Encounter with the Electron
> > > Till:
> > > Kopia: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> > > Datum: fredag 17 december 2010 08:20
> > >
> > > For anyone who wants the article, I've uploaded
> it here:
> > >
> > > http://www.mediafire.com/?ldn8rs9bpgn0h6e
> > >
> > > Obviously you'll want to save it because this
> isn't a
> > > hosting service.
> > >
> > > Or you can get the whole thesis here:
> > >
> > > http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/8931/1/b37359617.pdf
> > >
> > > It's a bit of a read and much of it just digests
> other
> > > sources, but it
> > > has some interviews with Roland engineers and
> some stuff
> > > from firm
> > > histories that really available in English.
> > >
> > > > I highly recommend this article:
> > > >
> > > > http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2006.00143.x/abstract
> > > >
> > > > It's an excerpt from a PhD thesis in
> geography
> > > (improbably enough),
> > > > but it focuses on the rise of the Japanese
> synth
> > > industry.
> > > >
> > > > The rest of the thesis has info on Yamaha,
> Roland,
> > > Korg, Kawai and Casio,
> > > > but I think this is the most interesting
> part, with
> > > the most firsthand
> > > > accounts and previously unknown
> information.  It
> > > interviews Dave Smith
> > > > and Ralph Deutsch; in particular I was
> interested in
> > > the Ralph Deutsch
> > > > stuff since he's a relative unknown, but
> also one of
> > > the most important
> > > > figures in the electronic music field. 
> He was
> > > responsible for the Allen
> > > > Digital Computer Organ and eventually Kawai
> K5, did a
> > > great deal of
> > > > digital synthesis research for both Yamaha
> and Kawai,
> > > and held something
> > > > like 140 patents.  Interestingly, he's
> also the
> > > cousin of Herb Deutsch.
> > > >
> > > > I got the whole article through some free
> registration
> > > thing; it's
> > > > kind of a pain.  But I have it saved as
> an html
> > > file and can pass it
> > > > along if anyone wants.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Synth-diy mailing list
> > > Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> > > http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy
> > >
> >
> >
>     
>         
>           
>   
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