Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Korg Poly800/EX800 Users

Good day to all HAWK-800 beta testers,

Yes, I call you beta testers for a couple of important reasons that
need to discussed and hashed out.

i) Extended and Original Parameter future moves
There is a strong possibility that I am going to rearrange the
ordering of the extended parameters and perhaps the original
parameters into a layout that works better with the new features. At
the moment, I've been just adding new parameters in the order in which
I implement them. This makes the layout very awkward. If and when
reordering happens, your existing patches are going to be affected
because the order will have changed. Are HAWK-800 owners likely to
rise up in revolt due to this possible future inconvenience? I hope
not, but it important to take this into consideration if you intend to
have your patches kept intact in the future. I will make sure that any
reordering that does occur is widely published. From now on, all flash
software upgrades will include release notes that describe in detail
the caveats and changes. This should help you to reorder your patch
parameters if and when they do happen.

ii) Parameter function changes
Similar to the issue above, there is a strong chance that some of the
new parameters will have their behaviors changed in such a way that
may cause your patches to change from their original intended sound.
This may also apply to some of the original parameters, in particular,
the VCF parameters may significantly change. Once again, release notes
with each new version of firmware released will detail any such
changes. The question is, how does everybody feel about such
inconveniences? And is there a way you would like me to handle such
future changes?

iii) EPROM upgrade
The new EPROM that comes with the HAWK-800 kit contains just enough
code to do the FLASH software update and start up the synth by jumping
into the downloaded flash software. At some point in the future, it is
going to be necessary to upgrade the EPROM firmware. I guess there
will be two ways to do this. One would be to make the EPROM code
available for download on the HAWK-800 website from where owners can
find some local techy with an EPROM programmer to first erase and then
reprogram the existing EPROM. The other way would be to make a new
EPROM available for purchase via the HAWK-800 website. I am guessing
it will cost about $7.50 USD plus shipping.

So I just wanted to explain everything as best I could as to the
future plans for the software.

Mike.