Ordered and mega psyched.

I'll see if I can convince a coder friend to help my lazy/dummy ass out with the conversion tool.  I know it would be much easier for me to work on the ANSI in pablodraw, sticking with the characters and palette limitations.

As for your graph paper idea... I have the vblank/jyk blip shirt, maybe I'll try transcribing that as my first experiment!

Already in there! There's a visualizer mode that can just blow midi characters on the screen in real time with optional mirroring effects controlled by CCs.

An ansi -> midi tool is possible and probably easily written in processing or some such language, but it's not a perfect correlation. I had to squeeze out some of the less used characters and marry the foreground/background palettes, as ANSI is a larger data set than midi. The way I set it up, you'll pretty quickly memorize the character sets which makes drawing on the fly a bit less about translation & more about drawing.

I draw my design on graph paper, and just type the midi into a tracker line by line, like reading a book.

Hey, just thinking out loud here... how feasible would it be to code an ANSI->MIDI conversion tool?   That would save some serious work.

Dag, I need to polish off my BBS and host it, you're beating me to the punch. XD

Wow, the future of this thing sounds exciting.  Right now, my live setup is reliant on a lappy (VST what!?!? shhh) so the "laptop free" module isn't as important to me, but I have lots of external MIDI gear I'd love to try w/ it.  MIDI guitar?  Piggy tracker MIDI!?!?!

I'd also love to see a mode that operates the same as the original pocket vblank, just with MIDI as the incoming source instead of audio....

lol bleo!
Yeah, the "Ansi Midio" demo on youtube that rolls in a few seconds took me about 3 hours from drawing to midi. That's why I don't have dozens of videos up yet. But man, you feel good when it's done.
I have a "laptop free" module prototype running pretty well now, should be out in October & the current firmware works with it. (I use a Yamaha QY, but any midi source works except those crappy midiman plastic controllers)  Next firmware is a PC "speaker synth" & LOGO visuals synth on the board right now.
(turtle down, left 40....... spirograph style vector graphics). Can't wait to see what you do with the ANSI!

OK, I think I'm gonna get one of these, which pisses me the fuck off cuz I know I'm gonna spend hours making meticulous and ridiculous ANSI scrollerz and not music.  Dammit.  But I have a pretty elaborate MIDI setup and I look forward to the future firmwares and what I might be able to accomplish with this piece.

mmmm.. Cleveland pee.

Quick update:

The first kits have gone out  & ANSI MIDIo kits are now shipping @ $65!
http://www.straytechnologies.com/

Check out the instructions, building instructions, sample files here:
http://www.straytechnologies.com/resources
& yeah, I'll build it for you if you want...

Let me know what you think!

... peed

Hey  all, just updated the first post in this thread with a new video of DRAW MODE and release information on the kit.  A little over 1/2 the price of the Pocket VBLANK for those willing to DIY!

For those following the awesome thread hijack: ( I love me some BBS talk!)
This is the end-all link on how to roll your own: http://www.bbscorner.com/startabbs/
There can alwayys be another !

I'm on alot of BBS's ATM and I would love to make one, how do I start?

Killer! Just peeked at your blog!
No time now, but I got my T102 telnetting into SDF about a month ago.. I've GOT to
fire it up & visit your project when you're rolling! excellent!!  I had no idea anyone else was messing with these!

I haven't been on COM yet, honestly... I know it'll be a time-sync! but I'll likely have some relax-time to muck around after the Hope conference.
ok.. back to coding on the MIDIo!

Hey, I'm an SDF-er too. Maybe I'll see you in COM some time?

Cool! I'll have to check that and Retro-net out when I take a coding break! I've been a member of Super Dimension Fortress: http://sdf.org/     for a while now. Cool to see other folks doing Shell accounts, gopher & the likes. Let us know when the bbs is up!
-VBLANK

My BBS is under construction at the moment. I'm coding it entirely by myself as part of a competition during July. It's a Telnet BBS. If you're interested in observing my progress you can visit my gopher page here: gopher://retro-net.org/1/arfink/ and then click on "Summer Retrochallenge 2010 Blog." I ran my first proof-of-concept code a couple days ago, and my first alpha will hopefully be available in the next few days.