Korg Poly800/EX800 Users

Hi Poly Fans,

Well not much of an update but how about a little confidence booster.

Summer is OVER! And that can mean only one thing. Lot's of time will
be available for me (and hopefully you) to continue disassembly of the
Poly.

However, I'm beginning to think that it might be just as much fun or
even more fun to just rewrite the code from the ground up! In fact, I
was thinking along the lines of making the project an open source
project. You see, my kids are homeschooled so I am always being asked
what I am up to in my little lab. And I was thinking that it would be
extremely educational for my kids to actually learn what it's like to
program a microcontroller in a synthesizer situation.

Although I think there is still a lot to be gained from me continuing
to disassemble the Poly code, I am contemplating creating a little
boot loader that will allow me to send an entire RAM image down MIDI
(not even sysex but a specially crafted upload) to the Poly. Then,
once the code is downloaded the Poly would boot the code. This would
give us the advantage of being able to write whatever we like on an
assembler, heck we could write it all in C if we like. And once we are
happy that the code is solid and bug free (running in RAM) then we can
commit the code to EPROM.

So far, I've probably spent about 10 to 15 hours on disassembly. It
doesn't sound like much but what I've learned in that time is that
disassembly without a memory map is really, really difficult. And the
other big thing I've learned from it is that it might be easier to
just rewrite the whole thing. I mean, who the heck cares about the
sequencer anyway. So why bother trying to disassemble that? Except
that, to disassemble the rest means disassembling it all. Kind of painful.

The only question is, how many software engineer people do we have on
this list who would be willing to contribute valuable and precious
time to coding in assembler or C?

If we went the open source route then I would just sell the hardware
retrofit kit and make the code free.

Mike.

Getting a stock Poly to run our own code would be a neat trick!
What is the CPU again, is it something gcc will compile for?

If you can code up a platform layer in asm, with hooks into the hardware
functions we need, I'd volunteer some code in C.

Tim

On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, patrioticduo wrote:

> Hi Poly Fans,
>
> Well not much of an update but how about a little confidence booster.
>
> Summer is OVER! And that can mean only one thing. Lot's of time will
> be available for me (and hopefully you) to continue disassembly of the
> Poly.
>
> However, I'm beginning to think that it might be just as much fun or
> even more fun to just rewrite the code from the ground up! In fact, I
> was thinking along the lines of making the project an open source
> project. You see, my kids are homeschooled so I am always being asked
> what I am up to in my little lab. And I was thinking that it would be
> extremely educational for my kids to actually learn what it's like to
> program a microcontroller in a synthesizer situation.
>
> Although I think there is still a lot to be gained from me continuing
> to disassemble the Poly code, I am contemplating creating a little
> boot loader that will allow me to send an entire RAM image down MIDI
> (not even sysex but a specially crafted upload) to the Poly. Then,
> once the code is downloaded the Poly would boot the code. This would
> give us the advantage of being able to write whatever we like on an
> assembler, heck we could write it all in C if we like. And once we are
> happy that the code is solid and bug free (running in RAM) then we can
> commit the code to EPROM.
>
> So far, I've probably spent about 10 to 15 hours on disassembly. It
> doesn't sound like much but what I've learned in that time is that
> disassembly without a memory map is really, really difficult. And the
> other big thing I've learned from it is that it might be easier to
> just rewrite the whole thing. I mean, who the heck cares about the
> sequencer anyway. So why bother trying to disassemble that? Except
> that, to disassemble the rest means disassembling it all. Kind of painful.
>
> The only question is, how many software engineer people do we have on
> this list who would be willing to contribute valuable and precious
> time to coding in assembler or C?
>
> If we went the open source route then I would just sell the hardware
> retrofit kit and make the code free.
>
> Mike.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Excellent! The programming team is now 100% bigger than it was an hour
ago.

The processor is an 80C85 which was the predecessor of the Zilog Z80.

I am not aware of an 80C85 snap in for gcc. But I would very surprised
if we were not able to find one.

I'll probably spend the next couple of weeks deciding which way to go
with all of this. I guess I'm doing a little mid disassembly reassessment.

But it really would be nice to write the whole thing ourselves.

Mike.


--- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, Tim Bieniosek <tab27@...> wrote:
>
> Getting a stock Poly to run our own code would be a neat trick!
> What is the CPU again, is it something gcc will compile for?
> 
> If you can code up a platform layer in asm, with hooks into the hardware
> functions we need, I'd volunteer some code in C.
> 
> Tim
> 
> 
> On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, patrioticduo wrote:
> 
> > Hi Poly Fans,
> >
> > Well not much of an update but how about a little confidence booster.
> >
> > Summer is OVER! And that can mean only one thing. Lot's of time will
> > be available for me (and hopefully you) to continue disassembly of the
> > Poly.
> >
> > However, I'm beginning to think that it might be just as much fun or
> > even more fun to just rewrite the code from the ground up! In fact, I
> > was thinking along the lines of making the project an open source
> > project. You see, my kids are homeschooled so I am always being asked
> > what I am up to in my little lab. And I was thinking that it would be
> > extremely educational for my kids to actually learn what it's like to
> > program a microcontroller in a synthesizer situation.
> >
> > Although I think there is still a lot to be gained from me continuing
> > to disassemble the Poly code, I am contemplating creating a little
> > boot loader that will allow me to send an entire RAM image down MIDI
> > (not even sysex but a specially crafted upload) to the Poly. Then,
> > once the code is downloaded the Poly would boot the code. This would
> > give us the advantage of being able to write whatever we like on an
> > assembler, heck we could write it all in C if we like. And once we are
> > happy that the code is solid and bug free (running in RAM) then we can
> > commit the code to EPROM.
> >
> > So far, I've probably spent about 10 to 15 hours on disassembly. It
> > doesn't sound like much but what I've learned in that time is that
> > disassembly without a memory map is really, really difficult. And the
> > other big thing I've learned from it is that it might be easier to
> > just rewrite the whole thing. I mean, who the heck cares about the
> > sequencer anyway. So why bother trying to disassemble that? Except
> > that, to disassemble the rest means disassembling it all. Kind of
painful.

> >
> > The only question is, how many software engineer people do we have on
> > this list who would be willing to contribute valuable and precious
> > time to coding in assembler or C?
> >
> > If we went the open source route then I would just sell the hardware
> > retrofit kit and make the code free.
> >
> > Mike.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, patrioticduo wrote:

> I'll probably spend the next couple of weeks deciding which way to go
> with all of this. I guess I'm doing a little mid disassembly reassessment.

i think IDApro has a snapin module for 80C85 disassembly. most of my 
experience with programming and assembly code in general has been with x86 
and SPARC security stuff, but i'd be willing to lend a hand wherever 
possible. do you guys IRC at all?

--darkcube [ detroit techno militia / uberhax0r ]
--email : darkcube@... / AOL IM : el8haqr
--web : http://www.detroittechnomilitia.com/main

> The only question is, how many software engineer people do we have on
> this list who would be willing to contribute valuable and precious
> time to coding in assembler or C?
> 
> If we went the open source route then I would just sell the hardware
> retrofit kit and make the code free.

I don't do any programming/coding/whatever at all, but I think this
sounds like a great idea! Something very similar is used with the
x0xb0x (diy tb-303), and there's at least more than one diy firmware
out there for it, and it's very easy to change or even reset to the
original firmware. It adds or takes away features, changes the
functions of certain buttons, etc, and it's all open source.

I built a x0xb0x, and I love it. The Poly800 is a different animal,
but I think the same concept would really bring the thing to life. I
wish I could help you guys out, but that stuff is waaay over my head. =(

Phoebe aka october71