65 Reply by vblank

(10 replies, posted in Motion Graphics)

I ripped one down, analyzed the circuit & video out.
It's flat-out what inspired the Pocket VBLANK.

They're meet machines, but have a horrible grounding problem that makes 50% of them in the wild dead-on-arrival. They also are designed for channel 3 & need to be heavily modded for composite output. Otherwise... Beautiful.


godinpants wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Video_Music

I found this while synth hopping around the internet. It looks like a pretty snazzy video synth

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66 Reply by vblank

(15 replies, posted in Trading Post)

NDS is Gone & sent!

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67 Reply by vblank

(22 replies, posted in General Discussion)

LastKnight wrote:

... peed

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!

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68 Reply by vblank

(15 replies, posted in Trading Post)

NDS Lite with the works up in the top post...

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69 Reply by vblank

(22 replies, posted in General Discussion)

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 !

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70 Reply by vblank

(22 replies, posted in General Discussion)

arfink wrote:

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

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!

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71 Reply by vblank

(22 replies, posted in General Discussion)

arfink wrote:

...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.

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

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72 Reply by vblank

(22 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Thanks for the good words, all. I'll have some live samples up this week or after 8Static. Just sorting out how to draw images & such via MIDI. I'm trying to add a few effects right now, to control via Midi CCs.

@BRKCORE: Yeah, in a way, ansi isn't too different then Glitchnes as the NES is tile-based. But the inspiration is pretty different. A lot of people grew-up with awesome homebrew graphics scrolling across their modem-lines and up their screens at 96kbs.

@Arfink:  where's your BBS! Love to visit! I've been on Masquerade & a few others a lot this summer putting the ideas for this together.

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73 Topic by vblank

(22 replies, posted in General Discussion)

[EDIT]:   New video demo of the DRAW MODE on the ANSI MIDIo kit. Literally, character and color info is entered in a tracker and sent as a track to the MIDIo (which is set up as an external MIDI instrument.
Why??  that means any tracker that does MIDI can have a perfectly synced visuals track!

The demo shows how it works, and I've released 3 Renoise files that disect the different MODES, ex: DRAW MODE, "Color Organ" MODE, etc..

Info here:
www.straytechnologies.com/ansi-midio-kit-new-video-demos-and-release
youtube link, and link to the Renoise Files, full instructions, and MIDI specifications there as well.

And the MORE feedback the better! I'm working on a LOGO firmware for it next... Remember the Turtle??


Hey All,
Thought I'd drop a line on my latest project: I'm doing a new visual board like the Pocket VBLANK, and incorporated a lot of feedback from folks here who bought one & some that didn't. 

Cheaper (Price TBD, but it's smaller & w/ less parts)
Kit version (even cheaper if you build it yourself)
User programmable (your images & patterns, not mine)

I'll debut it at the Hope conference in NYC this weekend. And they'll ship as soon as I return on Tuesday or Wednesday!

And oh yeah.... ANSI Graphics! The 12 main ansi graphic characters in 16-color goodness.
Art Packs are back ; )

Here's some more info & the first sample video:

www.straytechnologies.com

--let me know what you think!

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74 Reply by vblank

(15 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

@Stevens: I can usually be bribed to do full mods, or completed kits anytime.  When you add it all up.. the 10 "fund-raisers" are all of the labor of the build for  US$7.50 each. I can't do that all the time, it's just my way of offering-up for people who can't afford cool tools all the time... trust me, I know.

@liquidpinappleeatingtvdude & all: A lot of folks bitch about this whole "FTDI cable" thing I do in my designs: Why pay $20 extra for usb, when it could be built in for $16??  Your question is the answer...YES!
I plan on an external module that does direct 5 pin/ din midi and power that plugs into the 6-pin FTDI header. My other option was make it really expensive stand-alone and include everything, or do it one-at-a-time.
I currently expect that module just after the next synth I'm working on, as they'll share that design. Maybe August or September?

Go to forum: Other Hardware

75 Topic by vblank

(15 replies, posted in Other Hardware)

Hey All,
If you remember WAAAAY back to last year, I was taking a survey and working on a
cheap way to do a YM/AY based hardware chip synth. Well ...
It's done and released!

Info and sample video is here:
http://www.straytechnologies.com/ym_min … -released/

I'm selling 10 completed units to raise money for the kit PCBs, and
Started taking pre-orders on the kits.

It's fully midi controllable with 3 channels of square (Left, Right, and Centered), and a Noise Channel that
Also works Left, Right or Stereo. Most of the crazy envelope effects are available via Midi CCs (Continuous Controllers).


It's set up for Midi via USB for ProTrekkr, or zTracker, or a slew of Midi sequencers like FL-Studio or reaktor (pretty-much anything that speaks Midi).
Let me know what you think!

Go to forum: Other Hardware

76 Reply by vblank

(8 replies, posted in Motion Graphics)

Lazerbeat wrote:

Im kind of curious, what does the little twiddly knob on the side of the board do?



It sets a threshold for the incoming audio (sort of a volume knob) this allows the user to set different looks by increasing or decreasing the graphical modulation response to the music.

It can also be cranked all the way for a "demo mode" when no audio is available.

Go to forum: Motion Graphics

77 Reply by vblank

(17 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Timing jitter seems to be a result of a lot of factors. I've done what I can to prevent it, but there's no saving a slow laptop. In my design, the YM has a dedicated oscillator, so midi timing issues won't cause audio jitter per se. Because I'm not using a proprietary midi driver, I've decided to receive the data at a faster rate than spec, and wait for each data byte. That should resolve dropped bytes and buffer overflow. That said, I'm sure someone will find a way to break it.

As to Mac FTDI Midi drivers: I'm using unhacked FT232R drivers and bumping up the speed with a helper app to resolve OSX & LInux stress.

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78 Reply by vblank

(17 replies, posted in General Discussion)

little-scale wrote:

Awesome! Are the stereo effects external to the chip?

The chip has 3 out ports with a tone channel on each and noise on all three. The old ST mod made a left tone, right tone and 2 channel tone. You can pan noise to all 3 spots as well. No soft sweeps, but plenty of room for L/R pinging or 1 channel sounds.

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79 Reply by vblank

(17 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Hey all,
Just an update about the project:
More info on my blog here: http://www.straytechnologies.com/ym_min … irst-look/

Got the first prototype PCB design finished, and the test board built: Running pretty well. It's about a third the size of an iPhone for scale.

This will be a kit for the open source firmware for those who don't want to source their own parts. It's set up to appear as a midi port via USB on OSX, WIN or Linux via a Java based driver. I saved some $ on the USB chip, by using an external FTDI (usb to serial) cable. This leaves a pin port so that a real midi port and external power supply can be added later as a plug-in module.

More Audio coming soon.

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80 Reply by vblank

(18 replies, posted in General Discussion)

TmTgr wrote:

I'm sure there is a button matrix somewhere for less that $43.

Drop me a line when you find it... I'll hack it.
Honestly, things have to into production in the thousands to drop below $1 per inch just for the pcb, not to mention the LEDs, mechanical buttons, and multiplexing chips. Until there's a "real world" application for 64 buttons, this s probably the most mass produced it's getting.

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