ComputerVoltageSources

Hi All
i'm responding to several of you LCD boffins at once here. I'll try to
keep it all straight

In general thanx for the consideration. i'm not deeply commited to the
cursor control idea (if i get desperate to build a ship-in-a-bottle i
can always write a patch on my DX7!) i just wanted keep the issue of
user interface active. I think some very good ideas are stirred up
here all around! 

--- In ComputerVoltageSources@yahoogroups.com, "John Loffink"
<jloffink@...> wrote:

> 1.  Dave has already allocated all pins of the ATtiny2313.  We'd need a
> larger ATMEGA device for the button inputs.

yer right! not worth it!
in view of yours , and other methods taht Dave suggested, i agree that
this would be pretty superfuous


> 2.  MIDI RX at the CVS board can't be easily shared, or OR'd as
suggested,

DOH!
i re-read my email, and realized that i was confusing two issues in my
rapidly decaying mind.  I DO realize that a whole infrastructure of
hardware and software would have to be esablished to MERGE -in the data
my bad! sorry!


> 4.  Program or parameter selection can also be done from the CVS
knobs, if
> so desired.  Maybe one knob scrolls through functions, another
changes the
> values.  This makes buttons redundant, but dedicates the knobs to that
> function.

true!!!, and , when i imagine it, i like it better than buttons!

coupled with Dave's clever suggestion of exploiting the SOFTWARE Realm to:

switch the MIDI input stream into a program mode

use the keyboard to select functions or data 

use a wheel as an "enter' key (and other functions too)

augment all of the above with a little bit of user feedback on the LCD

....and we got us a pretty decent user interface without dedicated buttons

and to bbob & Andrew's Spartan prinicples, it appears to me (correct
me if i'm wrong guys) that the LCD functionality is already assumed to
be OPTIONAL. It will, of couse, behoove programmers to specify whether
their software App. will REQUIRE the use of the MIDI stream or the LCD
 but i always to write for the minimum config and leave it to the
users to add bells whistles & blinkylights.

That there is a lot of disccusion about it doesn't imply (to me
anyway) that it is a nascent requirement.
Hell! Grant may have the thing in the mail to Harry for all i know.
(oooooooo now THAT'LL start a thread ;'>)
but my favorite vision is a very generic 'engine' on the main PCB
bristling with 'hooks' to accomodate a wide range personal custom 
versions.

avanti!
-doc