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3buns Newbie Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8
Posted: 12:04am 06 Nov 2012
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Hi all, would experienced users of MMBasic be able to comment on a rather ambitious project I have for the Maximite (B&W)?
I'd like to be able to have a simple text UI, driven by an old school serial mouse, I would also like to bit bang midi. Do users think the Maximite has enough horsepower to perform all three simultaneously? I guess the MIDI routines would have priority, the GUI and mouse would have to 'catch up'. Esential I would like to create a very basic MIDI sequencer.
Kind regards, Kurt.Edited by 3buns 2012-11-07
Nick Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 512
Posted: 09:07am 06 Nov 2012
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That would be great! The Maximite would make a nice compact MIDI controller and the onboard SD card could hold songs for live performances.
I assume the MIDI drivers would need to be written in assembly language since BASIC may not be fast enough?
Why a text GUI? Design your Graphic GUI layout on a PC/MAC and LOADBMP the entire screen with one command. Instead of a mouse, a well designed GUI can be had that utilized the function keys.
Nick
3buns Newbie Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8
Posted: 11:32pm 06 Nov 2012
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Hi Nick, I was going for the text UI as I thought it might be quicker to refresh parts of the screen that need updating, such as the track timelines. I was also going for a mouse as I would like to have say 8 favourite instruments in a tool bar that I can drag and drop on to any one of the tracks.
I'm afraid I haven't written assembler since the original 8 bit PICs in the 90s, I'm going to try some code at the weekend and try using the PULSE command, the manual says its good for +/-1uS, which is outside the 1% for midi accuracy, but I'm going to try it on my Yamaha QY70, just to satisfy my mind first.
King regards, Kurt
3buns Newbie Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8
Posted: 12:11am 07 Nov 2012
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Actually, I've just realised that program execution speed will hold back the bit banging, I will need to implement MIDI messages another way. Back to the drawing board.
Kind regards, Kurt
jdh2550 Regular Member Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62
Posted: 12:42pm 07 Nov 2012
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Do you have any experience programming in C? If so, it's relatively easy to add commands to the interpreter and have C level routines handle the bit banging. Would that work for you? (it's how we did the CAN commands)
3buns Newbie Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8
Posted: 10:10pm 08 Nov 2012
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I don't know any C, but am always willing to learn something new. My next thought had been to use a couple of cascaded off-board PISO shift registers, I could then get the timing spot on but would have to waste the last 6 bits of the message.
Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me.
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