Wow, this is going better than i could have hoped. Here i was looking to keep the old way going, and now we're talking about the new way. It crossed my mind that with current technology there should be a workaround, i just wasn't sure anyone cared enough to look. Reading this (and understanding it all, oddly) has made me even more excited to see it happen. Jack, both solutions sound really awesome and i don't think i'm the only one who would shell out for either. I understand what it's like having other committments, but i definitely want to hear more about this. --- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Jack Pratt <woodsworth1@...> wrote: > > Its actually not that hard to make FLASH SIMMs. The pin-outs are posted on the P2K group [I put them there]. > > The 32MB SIMM that I have has Intel Strata FLASH (J3A) parts on it. The current iteration (J3D) is programmatically compatible with the original parts so you should be able to make one that works identically to the original - ie you can program them in an Ultra and should be able to write the presets in a proteus module. > > The difference between the audity and the proteus (in terms of SIMMs) is that the audity addresses 4 x 4MB devices and the proteus address 4 x 8MB devices plus the preset rom. I'm pretty sure that the content makes them incompatible also. > > I have plans to make some SIMMs but I was thinking that they would be DRAM based so that the contents were loaded at power on. The general idea was that you have a micro SD card slot, an FPGA and some DRAM and while the proteus module (or audity - the FPGA could provide signals for either) is booting the contents of the SD card are copied into DRAM. Change the SD card and you get a different 'ROM'. It could also be modified so that the DRAM contents could be changed on the fly, but you'd need to patch the OS so that it will rescan the contents [or provide a UI for selecting the image to load from the SD card]. Other features of this SIMM would be that it could be 'seen' in up to 4 slots (ie 128MB DRAM plus the 16/32MB preset region) - it happens that the slot select signals can be 'decoded' from any slot [although you need to know which slot you're in to make sense of them, so you require that the SIMM be in slot 0 and then tell it which other slots to > emulate]. > > I was also going to make a SIMM programming board that would allow one to read/write the contents of a FLASH SIMM (byte for byte, rather than what the Ultra reports). I have 22 of 23 ROM SIMMs [no composer ROM from a P2500 yet] so I have plenty of source material. I want to see how hard it is to make a FLASH SIMM look like a ROM to the proteus module. It would also be useful for copying preset information which you don't get from the Ultra - possibly you could coalesce the preset information from ROMs which have identical waveform information (eg the various XL ROMs) instead of having demo songs [after hearing them once, who needs them?]. > > In any case, a P2K FLASH SIMM would cost about USD80 - USD100 in parts depending on quantity but then there's labour and initial costs to make them happen. I suppose that USD150 would be reasonable target price for making them. Alternatively the cost for the DRAM solution would be perhaps double that. Hacking the P2K OS is just tedious & time consuming - I've started disassembling it but haven't gotten far because of other commitments. > > > > > > > ________________________________ > From: duncan <goddard.duncan@...> > To: xl7@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Mon, January 4, 2010 11:31:40 PM > Subject: [xl7] Re: Still a call for blank ROMs? > >  > I'd buy more in a blink, if they were a) available & b) reasonably priced (e.g. in the order of $200 for a 32MB; I realise that this is always going to be a short-order item). > I wish the firmware supported bigger memory too. > > I have tried to buy more but the one outlet that claims to have stock is not responding. > > my experiences (& YMMV):- > > I currently have three of the 32MB (from emu) & one 16MB (ebay). > > also, the "XL" expansion I bought for my audity 2000 is a crippled version of this same ram card, in that it is the same hardware but is somehow write-protected. it won't work in a proteus box, but is fine in my ultras. go figure, as they say. > > the flash roms are shared by a regular p2k rackmount, a virtuoso rackmount, a planet-earth rackmount, an XL-7 command station & a PK-6 keyboard.... so, not enough custom rom to go around all the proteus I have, but just about enough if I juggle them with the various factory roms aswell. > > I use them primarily for samples of my m400 mellotron which, with it's nine tapeframes, is just too cumbersome for active gig life. I also have some found-sounds & home-made stuff in there. > > it doesn't seem to be possible to copy samples or presets from a factory rom in an ultra, in order to create a "best-of" rom. if anyone's done this, I'd like to hear how! :-) I haven't tried renaming the samples..... > > biggest hassle is that juggling- how to keep track of patches I've made using the custom roms & the factory roms, if I keep moving them around. I have to do a lot of sys-ex dumps & even then, the naming & numbering convention of the roms & the soundsets is crucial & tricky. > > (e.g. emu made at least two versions of the "composer" rom with different names but the same contents. they show up as different IDs.) > > but the actual authoring process is quite sweet (once you get it working- I have an ultra 5000 that won't do it, no matter what, & an ultra 6400 that has no problems at all. luckily, these machines are quite cheap now....) > > you will have to keep tweaking the bank size; even if it says it's 32MB, the odd few bytes over this won't show up on the sampler's display, & will stop it fitting on the rom. a finished bank is made up of samples & sampler patches; the authoring process (which takes about ten minutes) creates a proteus instrument which retains the sampler's stereo placement, keyboard mapping & so forth. > > the advantages that should be immediately obvious are that the samples are available instantly when the machine boots, you don't have to load from hard-drive (& if you use the rom in a proteus box, you don't have a fragile hard drive to worry about), & you have a better (IMHO) synth engine with which to process them. > > I used to do the same sort of thing with alesis' soundbridge & quadrasynths; the emu version is a dream compared to that nightmare! > > the nearest contemporary equivalent to this functionality is the waldorf blofeld with the sample option (keyboard or desktop). this lets you have 60MB of custom sounds on-board a pretty powerful synth engine, but the o/s is somewhat flakey at the time of writing, & the hardware options (audio outs & so on) are way weaker than the proteus. my blohard sounds amazing, but locks up all the time. the proteus is still the one for me. > > duncan/radio massacre international > > > __._,_..___ > Reply to sender | Reply to group Messages in this topic (4) > Recent Activity: * New Members 2 > Visit Your Group Start a New Topic > MARKETPLACE > Going Green: Your Yahoo! 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Re: Still a call for blank ROMs?
2010-01-05 by john