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January 28 2012
A modest copyright proposal
Everybody is so negative about SOPA and PIPA and ACTA. Nobody sees the opportunities! In the US legal system, plaintiffs who can prove willful infringement are entitled to up to $150,000 per work in damages. Let’s make a conservative estimate that a million Americans have downloaded 100 songs each. This would mean potential damages of $15M ($15,000,000) per person. Across a million people, that’s 15 million million, or 15 trillion US dollars in damages.
What does this number remind you of? You’re right, the US gross public debt. So hear me out on this modest proposal. Use this money to pay back the public debt. Then give each of the million people a 400 year prison sentence (not unheard of in the US) and let them work their asses off for 400 years to pay back the debt that is now on their shoulders. (Should anyone try to die from natural causes prior to the end of the sentence, you simply threaten to kill the person in question, which is usually enough to make him or her want to stay alive.) Putting another million people in prison won’t even double the US prison population, so the relatively small increase would hardly be a strain on the American correctional supervision system.
It’s doubtful whether anyone could object to this modest proposal which would instantly solve the two biggest problems America is facing today, copyright infringement and rampant public debt.
December 04 2011
Korg monotribe Firmware 2.0 analysis
As has already been established, Korg monotribe is MIDI capable. Howver, it is still limited with regard to certain things, such as being able to use more than 8 seqeuncer steps for the synth part or using a filter envelope separately from and LFO. All things that should be very much technically possible on the microcontroller device in the unit. One thing I’ve considered is to modify or even rewrite the firmware of the ‘tribe. Apart from the obvious work of actually rewriting the firmware, you need a way of flashing it onto the device. And preferably a copy of the original firmware, so the ‘tribe won’t be a useless brick until development is done. The microcontroller in the monotribe does support JTAG, a protocol for reading and writing firmware data, among other things, but this function may be locked down for security reasons.
Korg recently announced the 2.0 firmware for the monotribe, which actually gives you 16 step, velocity control and a few other new features. More full information and download available on Korg’s homepage.
But what’s interesting about this upgrade is how you install it. You hold a secret key combo of three buttons on startup to go into upgrade mode, and then play a special audio file into the sync jack to perform the actual upgrade. This is potentially an easy way to hack the firmware of the monotribe (although with the same risk of bricking.)
Below, I’m posting the first step towards that goal, to extract the firmware image from the audio file. First, a big thanks to Th0mas for doing the initial groundwork of figuring out how the data is encoded. In fact, my code below below relies on having a transformed and cleaned up version of the audio data.
How is this data composed? The audio file encodes individual bits as little square wave pieces that are longer or shorter depending on whether a bit is low or high. The problem then becomes to figure out what is high and what is low, and how individual bytes are arranged. Th0mas quickly found out that short pulses mean a logical 1 and that bytes are transmitted with least significant digit first.
The problem, then, was to align the different data packets in the file, which both me and Th0mas spent some time trying to bruteforce by inserting bits at variious places to make the bytes appear correctly. To your you have two plaintext text strings saying KORG, and also a few other patterns. You feel like you’re trying to solve the GCHQ challenge. Eventually I gave a up bruteforcing and made an assumption about the encoding that turned out to be correct.
My starting point was a file with a list of individual bits. The data is transferred in packets with a 256 byte payload each. Normally, a number of 1 bits a retransmitter. To initiate communication, one 0 bit is transmitted, followed by starting signature of 0xA9, then 256 bytes of data are transferred. Then, 3 byte signature, 0×55, 0×55, 0×55 is transmitted (a “checkerboard” pattern, or alternating 0s and 1s.) Lastly, there’s a byte that I’m not sure what it’s for. It’s probably some form of checksum, but I can’t figure out what it is. (I’ve tried a number of xor combinations to see if I could figure it out, but no luck so far. Suggestions are welcome.)
Between every packet, there’s a number of bits skipped, or transmitted as simply 1. 344 to be precise, or 43 bytes. This was probably chosen to get a nice-looking number of cycles for (256+43=99) However, I would still assume that the ‘tribe is triggered by the start bits coming after a pause, rather than counting cycles.
Two packets are different, however, the first and the last. Both have the 0xA9 pre-data signature, and both lack the 0×55 post-data signature. The first, “greeting” package is much shorter than 256 bytes, and the rest is filled with 0xff. It looks like this:
I have not figured out what the 27 D8 value is. I couldn’t find any way of making it match the size of the rest of the dat. The 02 and 01 probably denote that this is version 2.0, first revision.
The last packet is also missing post-data signature. All the regular data adds up to a total of exactly 32768 nytes, or 32 kB.
Below is my version of the decoder program, which takes a “bits” file generated by Th0mas’ scripts, see the link above. It doesn not save the additional data, only the 256 byte payload of each packet.
Code, written in Python: (Or as a pastebin.)
from struct import pack
class TribeDecodeError(Exception):
def __init__(self, value):
self.value = value
def __str__(self):
return repr(self.value)
# Seeks a 'tribe fw bit array for the next packet start.
# Takes an iterator
def packetseek(it):
numbits = 0;
while(it.next()):
numbits += 1; # Loop through all the junk bits
# print "%d bits skipped." % (numbits)
# Fetch next byte from bitarray.
# Returns an int.
def fetchbyte(it):
tempstr="";
for x in range(0,8):
#print it.next()
tempstr = str(it.next())+tempstr;
return int(tempstr, 2)
# fetch a number of bytes to extract a full packet
# The second optional argument is to ignore the post-signature check, needed for the initial greeting packet
def fetchpacket(it, ignorepostsig=False, packetindex=0):
tempbyte=0;tempstr = "";temparray=[];
tempbyte=fetchbyte(it);
# Confirm pre-signature
if(tempbyte != 0xA9):
raise TribeDecodeError(”Invalid packet pre-signature! Should be 0xA9. Found: ” + hex(tempbyte));
# Confirm post-signature
for x in range(0,256):
tempbyte = fetchbyte(it);
tempstr+=pack(”B”, tempbyte);
temparray.append(tempbyte);
if not ignorepostsig:
# Confirm post-signature
for x in range(0,3):
tempbyte = fetchbyte(it);
if(tempbyte != 0×55 and packetindex != 0×80):
raise TribeDecodeError(”Invalid packet post-signature! Should be 3*0×55. Found: ” + hex(tempbyte));
# Print the mysterious checksum byte
tempbyte = fetchbyte(it);
print “Packet %s has checksum (?) %s” % (hex(packetindex), hex(tempbyte));
# Sanity check
tempbyte = fetchbyte(it);
if(tempbyte != 0xff):
raise TribeDecodeError(”Sanity check. Packet should be followed by 0xff but isn’t. Found: ” + hex(tempbyte));
return tempstr;
# main function
def tribefwdecode(infile, outfile, invert):
f = open(infile, “r”);
bitarray = f.readlines(); # Fetch the array of bits
# Validate the bit array and convert it to bool
for i,b in enumerate(bitarray):
b = b.strip();
if (b != “0″ and b != “1″):
raise TribeDecodeError(”Only 0 and 1 in the bit file, please! Found: ” + b);
else:
if invert:
bitarray[i] = 1-int(b);
else:
bitarray[i] = int(b);
bititer = iter(bitarray);
# Seek for the greeting packet.
packetseek(bititer);
fetchpacket(bititer, True)
f = open(outfile, “w”)
packetidx = 0;
while True:
try:
packetseek(bititer); # Try to get a packet
except StopIteration:
break; # Detect end of file.
# Parse packet and write it fo the file.
packet = fetchpacket(bititer,False,packetidx)
f.write(packet)
packetidx += 1;
# If we’re done, close the file.
f.close();
print “File %s successfully parsed and written to %s” % (infile, outfile)
tribefwdecode(”bits”, “firmware2.bin”, True)
If you have questions or suggestions what the unknown values might be (27 F8 and checksum) please leave a comment below.
November 25 2011
Fun with a LED spotlight, a camera, my hand and some fruit
I recently bought an IKEA spotlight. (JANSJÖ Clamp spotlight, product number 80163192) For fun I tried cupping my hand around it in a dark room to make the light shine through my hand. I could see my own veins. Pretty cool. I used to this with flashlights as a kid, as well.
Of course, I felt the need to document it. But these pictures look considerably different from what I could see with my naked eye…
The photo has a pink tint and the sensor is saturated in the area between my fingers. (There was no open gap between the fingers.) What the how, you might ask? Let me tell you, the camera is picking up infrared light. The human doesn’t react to IR light, but digital cameras generally do react to near-red IR to some degree. There’s typically an IR high pass filter to remove the mostly unwanted IR, but it’s not perfect. Handy tip: You can also use this effect to test whether a remote control or Wii sensor bar is working by pointing it toward the camera, pressing a button/turning it on and looking at the screen.
So the LED is apparently emitting quite a lot of IR, and my flesh is apparently pretty transparent to it. What about some fruits? For this experiment, I made hole in various fruits and mounted to the lamp head, making sure no light escaped out the back. I put a plastic bag over the lamp head so it wouldn’t get dirty, of course.
An apple:
The effect on the apple is certainly not as pronounced as on my hand, but you can see it in the shadow, as well as some fringing around the edge of the fruit.
The last fruit to get this treatment was a kiwi. As one might expect, the thick skin and colored pulp made this shot less interesting from an IR point of view, but they are still included below. The difference in color is from experimenting with different ISO values. The last picture shows where the lamp head is shoved into the fruit with the “condom” on.
And lastly a semi-unrelated photo: This is some form of residue in my sink that I couldn’t remove easily. I think it’s a drop of grapefruit juice that has dried out. Pretty cool pattern. A moon with a big crater?
October 17 2011
September 28 2011
Syncing monotribe to LSDj using the sync jack (no MIDI)
Monotribe has jacks on the back for sync in and out. The sync output outputs 15 ms 5V pulses, which can either be rising or falling. (There’s a setting for this.) The sync input can also trigger on either a positive or a negative edge. (There’s a setting for this as well.)
You can trigger this input from LSDj. There are two things to think about:
1) The signal from the headphone jack is too weak. You need a ProSound modded DMG with the volume turned all the way up. (Other models untested, may or may not work…)
2) The monotribe requires a single clean rising edge to trigger correctly. The pitfall when using LSDj is that for example a square way, or a sawtooth wave, or even the noise generator, will trigger multiple steps. For this reason, you cannot use the pulse channels for this without getting a lot of false triggers. But you can use either the wave channel or the noise channel with somewhat predictable results (almost no false triggers) using a couple of tricks.
In this video I’m showing you how. As you can see, the video also shows which buttons I were pressing at any one time in case anything is unclear. Below is an explanation for the things show in the video.
1) Using the wave channel
The idea of this method is to create a wave that doesn’t oscillate. Instead of a sawtooth wave or a sine wave, you have a constant voltage. The easiest way to do this is by creating a synth with zero volume and moving all samples to the top.
Select+B, right until everything is selected, up until the samples are at the top.
(After recording this I realized that an even easier way to do the same thing is to set the VSHIFT parameter to 80, but this is good exercise in using the wave editor.)
The instrument used needs to be a wave instrument and have PLAY set to MANUAL. At this point, the instrument hould be ready to use. Place a note on on each step in the sequencer where you want to trigger the monotribe.
2) Using the noise channel
The Gameboy noise channel actually doesn’t produce real noise, but pseudo-random noise by changing amplitude between 0 and 1 in ways that sound random to humans. The Gameboy allows you to control the pitch of the noise, and at very slow pitch settings, it can take a second between the changes. This can be to sync the monotribe by first turning on the sound quickly to trigger the sync function, and then turning it off again, so the noise channel’s oscillations won’t trigger any more steps after that.
The way to do this is by setting the shape to 54 and usinng a table that turns off the sound output with the O command. (Trust me, I’m a professional.) I also changed the envelope to F8 to get the maximum amplitude possible.
General instructions
Use either the wave method or the noise method, not both. Both methods should give you OK stability from 40 BPM to 255 BPM, but sometimes you’ll see glitches, especially if you adjust the tempo.
If you have an appropriate left/right splitter cable, you can pan the sync instrument to the left and all other instruments to the right, to get both sound and sync out of one Gameboy. If any sound instrument is panned to the sync channel, the monotribe will start rushing.
Always start the monotribe first (or stop/start it before you restart LSDj) if you want things in sync. Otherwise, it will start at the step where it received the last pulse before it stopped.
Even when following all instructions, it may happen that the monotribe misses a beat when you press play, in particular the first time you press play after turning on the Gameboy. If so, stop LSDj, stop/start the monotribe and try again.
Tip 1: Adding some swing
You can add some swing in LSDj, just like when using Korg’s iOS app SyncKontrol. Swing, or shuffle, basically means that you delay every second note to get a more natural and less straight feel.
For this, I’m using the groove function in LSDJ. Since I laid out the the sync notes as 1/8th notes, I need to make a groove pattern that is 4 steps for it to have any effect. This is an LSDj technique that doesn’t need the monotribe to work. Go here to learn how the groove function in LSDj works.
Tip 2: Using the noise channel as a random trigger source
If you want to get random trigger pulses that are not synced to the tempo, or anything else, you can create a noise instrument with a low shape value, just like in the noise example below. If you let it play, it will trigger the monotribe at seemingly random intervals.
If you have any questions or thoughts, ask below.
August 14 2011
Monotribe, MIDI and me
Introduction
Voilà Korg monotribe, the successor to its little brother, the monotron. The Monotron is a cheap, squeeky, and easily moddable toy synth with an MS-10/20-like filter topology. It has a ribbon keyboard an audio oscillator, an LFO, a lowpass filter, and not much more. The monotron was an instant hit, and Korg released schematics for it to aid modders further.
When I heard about the monotribe, I had my doubts. Mostly that there’s only one pattern, which is 8 steps long. Well, there are 8 extra steps for the drums, as well as a “flux mode” which records your movements on the ribbon continuously. In that sense, it is limited, and is an instrument made to be played with your hands, rather than be programmed. But as it turned out, this was a design choice, and not a technical limitation. I can easily imagine why. They wanted it to seem as analog and playful as possible.
Same thing with MIDI. Officially, the monotribe doesn’t support MIDI. It does however offer a sync pulse output and input. This allows it to be synced to other monotribes, modular synthesizers or even Korg’s own virtual iMS-20/iElectribe, using a special sync app on a second iPhone/Pod/Pad. However, the lack of MIDI is still a slight limitation.
TOC
MIDI, the electrical side of things
MIDI, the mechanical side of things
What can you do with MIDI on the monotribe?
Where do we go from here?/Final thoughts
Opening it up
Before I get to the part everyone has been waiting for, let me remark on something I noticed when I opened up the monotribe. The whole bottom side of the main board is covered in some form of residue, maybe flux or one of the liquids used in the manufacturing process.
This is even nastier. In the top two pictures, there’s some black stuff that I’m not sure what it is. Could be corrosion of some kind, or parts of a chip that was crushed by the pick and place machine. Or something. In the bottom picture, notice how IC17 (an LM324 opamp) as well as the Q2 transistor, are covered in this gunk. Also notice that there’s too much solder on some of the SMD resistors. (Original hi-res photo, 4320 x 3240) None of that is an immediate risk to the function of the device, but depending on what that residue actually is, there’s a very real risk of an increased failure rate over a decade or three, due to corrosion. I’ve seen better soldering, and I’ve seen significantly worse soldering, but all-in-all I expect better from a factory-made product. Maybe mine was a dud, but it makes you wonder.
Hackability and MIDI
I doubt Korg is going to release a schematic for the monotribe anytime soon, like they did for the monotron, but the monotribe board does have a number of useful points for modifying parameters and separating outputs, marked on the board. See the Monomodder blog for inspiration.
However, monotribe is quite a different beast compared to monotron. Even though the sounds are generated with analog circuitry, the heart of the monotribe is a microcontroller. The microcontroller is used as sequencer and, I think, LFO. The microcontroller is a Toshiba TMPM332FWUG. It has an ARM Cortex-M3 core, 128 kB of flash memory and 8 kB of internal RAM. It is clocked at 10 MHz. It has, like most microcontrollers these days, support for UART (serial communication) which means that software running on the microcontroller could theoretically easily implement MIDI, which is really just a quirky variation of UART. As I, and air_variable (Japanese) before me have discovered, there is something going on there, and it turned out to be actual MIDI. All you need to do is hook a few points on the board.
MIDI, the electrical side of things
Upper schematic: MIDI out. Lower schematic: MIDI in. NC means “no connection”.
Note that this schematic is looking at the back of a panel mount style MIDI jack, similar to the one seen in my other images.
The schematic is drawn so that you’re looking at the chip from above. Place the chip so that the little notch is pointing up. Pins 2 and 3 are on the left side of the chip. Ground is the bottom right pin. +5V/+3.3V is the upper right pin on the chip. The things inside the dotted rectangle is what’s inside the chip.
The unspecified diode on the left of the chip is a small signal diode, not a LED. 1n4148 or 1n914 will work, for example.
MIDI is designed in such a way that individual bits are transferred as a current that lights up a LED in an optocoupler, on the receiving side. This LED, in turn turns a phototransistor on and off. In a MIDI circuit, the LED in the optocoupler should be connected between the +5V line and the signal line. Normally, the signal line is high, which means there is no difference between it and the +5V line. To communicate, the signal line will go low, which in turn will light the LED on the receiving side.
A MIDI circuit should have a number of resistors both on the transmitting and receiving side. This design gives MIDI better noise immunity, and protects the gear in case of a number of things that can go wrong, such as a short-circuit between any individual pins, connecting an output to an output or reversing the pinout of the plug.
Let’s first look at how to do MIDI out with the monotribe. The microcontroller is using a 3.3 V power supply. MIDI is normally using 5 V, so if we wanted to be correct, we would convert the signal from 3.3 V to 5 V. However, we don’t strictly need to do this. As long as we can light up the LED on the other side, we’re fine. (You might need a real +5 V supply if you want to connect a MIDI hub that is powered by the MIDI host, however.)
To be guaranteed to light up the LED from 3.3 V, we’ll need to decrease the resistor values slightly. I found that replacing R1 and R2 in the schematic above with 150 ohms each works fine with my MIDI interface, but my calculations are suggesting that around 60 ohms may be needed, depending on the optocoupler. Bigger value resistor is safer, so try 150 ohms first.
There are two ways to do MIDI in, either with an optocoupler or without one. If you want to be cheap, you can simply connect the signal pin (the lowest one) from the MIDI jack and connect it through a 820 ohm resistor to the RX pin (see below) of the microcontroller. The resistor is needed to protect the microcontroller chip from the signal which is using a +5V signal level, which is outside of the chip’s specified limits. If you do it this way, you also need to connect ground from the MIDI jack (the “NC” pin) to ground on the board. Do not connect +5 V pin (the upper pin) anywhere.
If you want to do it properly, you can use for example a 6n136 or a 6n138. If you choose to use a 6n136, connect it as pictured above. (Connect +3.3 V, the red wire in the picture, instead of +5V in the schematic.) If you’ll be using a 6n138, you can use the connection below, according to Wooster audio. The part of the circuit that is to the left of the diode is the same as in the 6n136 circuit.
The picture above shows how I connected MIDI in with an optocoupler. The blue wire is ground. The red wire is +3.3V. The yellow wire is where the signal comes back (MIDI in.)
The MIDI output is situated between the points with yellow and the red cables, i.e. 3rd from the top.
MIDI, the mechanical side of things
You drill a hole for the jack, simple enough. However, I’ll share these images as a cautionary tale that you need to pay attention where you drill the hole. Here I made two mistakes:
1) The hole was too high up, so the jack collided with the PCB. (You’re looking into the monotribe from the bottom, so up=down…) I solved this by trimming away a part of the PCB which was just a big ground plane.
2) The less obvious problem is that the hole was too far back, so one of the screw holes ended up behind the standoff. This is a problem because it makes it difficult to insert a nut behind the screw.
So, plan before you drill!
If you’re using an optocoupler you need to add a small PCB for the optocoupler and the other components. (2-3 resistors and a diode.) I found that one suitable place for attaching this board is on the interface board. There’s a hole drilled where you can attach a board with a screw, as pictured below. Once again, however, I slightly misjudged the measurements. The board stuck out too long and collided with the speaker.
What can you do with MIDI on the monotribe?
Simple answer: You can sync the internal sequencer, play notes, and control all parameters the EG type as well as all parameters relating to the LFO section. It also transmits those very same things, so it could be used as a MIDI sync source, sequencer or limited control surface.
Details
- Sync: It will both send and accept MIDI sync, start and stop messages, meaning the sequencer can be reset over MIDI, which can’t be done remotely if you’re only using the regular sync input.
Quirks/problems: When you’re using the miditribe as a MIDI slave and remove the sync clock, it will keep waiting for a MIDI clock indefinitely. You can fix this by either turning it off and on again, or plugging something in and out of the sync in jack, which will restore it to the internal sync clock.
- Notes: It will send and receive notes within the limits of the sequencer. It’s using channel 1 for notes. Notes outside these limits will be ignored. It does not react to varying velocities. It does however react to pitch bend MIDI messages and is able to record and play back pitch bend in flux mode! I don’t have MIDI out hooked up at the moment, so I can’t confirm this right now, but I’m assuming it also transmits MIDI pitch bend messages when it plays notes in flux mode.
Quirks/problems: It has a stuck note issue when it doesn’t receive a note off message for a note. Let’s say you send a note on message for D4 and then a note on message for E4, and lastly a note off message for E4. This can happen in Renoise, for example. In this situation, D4 gets stuck, and a new D4 note is played as soon as you release all other keys. Sometimes multiple keys can get stuck, and you need to go through each key to depress each one.
- Drums: It’s using the standard General MIDI specification for drums, which means the following notes on MIDI channel 10.
Name Note number Note name GM drum name BD 36 C1 Bass drum 1 SN 40 E1 Snare dum 2/Electric snare HH 42 F#1 Closed hi-hat - Control change messages (CC): It can send and receive CC for all the knobs and switches marked green above. The parameters are mapped as follows:
Name CC number Values GM parameter name LFO rate 16 – General purpose controller 1 LFO int. 1 – Modulation wheel EG shape 80 32=decay
64=sustain
96=attack General purpose controller 5 LFO target 81 32=VCO
64=VCO+VCF
96=VCF General purpose controller 6 LFO mode 82 32=Fast
64=Slow
96=1shot General purpose controller 7 LFO wave 83 32=Saw
64=Triangle
96=Square General purpose controller 8Quirks/problems: It’s practically useless as a MIDI control surface because it is really slow at sending CC messages. If you wiggle one of the knobs a few times really fast for a few seconds, it will continue to transmit CC commands for several seconds.
I’ve noticed that when controlling the LFO rate/int. knobs remotely, the value will sometimes jump back to the value that the knob is at. I’m guessing that this happens because there’s a small fluctuation in the voltage that the microcontroller will pick up as a change in the value. If you only want to control these parameters over MIDI, you can minimize this effect by turning these knobs fully counter-clockwise.
Videos
These are two videos showing me play around with MIDI in and MIDI out.
MIDI in
MIDI out
Video advertising this post, basically
Music sequenced in Renoise, played back on Korg monotribe and fed back into Renoise’s effects, some distortion and some delay. The drums are not played by the monotribe, but are samples in Renoise.
Where do we go from here?/Final thoughts
Some people have been wondering why Korg didn’t just include MIDI support out of the box. First off, to be honest, I think the MIDI support is a bit buggy, and probably wasn’t ready to be released anyway. It might be something they implemented mostly for internal testing. Another possibility, which I don’t believe much in, is that they’re planning to release a MIDI-enabled “monotribe pro” later. I just don’t think that fits into Korg’s profile of how people will use the monotribe, so I don’t think there will be a pro version with MIDI.
But, phew! Hopefully this should be enough information to get some of you up and running and get MIDI working on your ‘tribes. So what can we use this for anyway? Hooking up the monotribe to a computer and just use it as an analogue synth, honestly doesn’t provide any real advantages over using, say, a good softsynth, in my opinion. The monotribe’s charm is its hands-on usage, so I think the modification will be most useful for syncing it with gear where it’s more convenient to use MIDI sync than the sync options at the back of the monotribe.
Another possibility for LSDj users, is to use Arduinoboy+LSDj MIDI out. You’ll be able to control the monotribe nicely and which will give you a nice analogue companion to LSDj’s digital sound.
Other than that, the fact that monotribe can be used with MIDI also opens up the possibility of an internal mod. For the price it’s sold for, it’s a fun toy but not an essential tool. If the thing could be extended to be more TB-303-ish (not going to hide my dreams) it would instantly become more appealing to a lot of people. My original idea was to replace the firmware on the unit’s own microcontroller, but that’s difficult and tedious.
My new idea idea is to add another microcontroller (’duino anyone?) which replaces the sequencer, and also gives the possibility to do things like slide (emulated with pitch bend) or accent (emulated by adjusting the LFO rate/intensity). You could also add a second LFO and all sorts of things. With some extra software and wires, this thing could become truly useful as a standalone unit…
Useful links:
Board photos and more on Flickr
My YouTube channel
Discussion on Muff Wiggler
Monomodder blog
July 21 2011
Why dead horizontal lines are harder to fix…
There’s a (relatively) well-known method of fixing dead lines on the DMG-01 (classic Gameboy) LCD screen which consists of dragging a hot soldering iron across the connection of the brown plastic connector with an epoxy blob, and the glass. The right spot in underneath where there’s normally a black rubber strip. This will reflow the glue, solder or whatever is used for the attachment, and the method can usually successfully fix dead vertical lines.
Sometimes people ask whether horizontal lines can be fixed as well. I’ve always assumed that the connector on the right side of the screen, which would be at fault if there are dead vertical lines, is basically identical, and that the only problem with fixing horizontal lines is the more awkward position of the connection — the “ribbon” is connected on the bottom side of the LCD glass, so you need to fit the soldering iron into a small corner without damaging anything.
However, the ribbon connector on the right side is different and more fragile. If you look at the top image, you’ll see a connector that looks brown. Technically speaking, this is called a flexible PCB (printed circuit board.) Just like on a regular, rigid PCB — like the display daughterboard itself — you have copper traces for connections and a green solder mask. The black blob in the middle is an integrated circuit, not unlike the chips you would see on any other circuit board, only that this one is hidden within a blob made of epoxy, and the circuit on the chip is connected directly to the copper traces, rather than using external pins soldered to a circuit board.
The right side connector has a similar flexible PCB, but the last stretch of the connection is made by a flimsy white plastic material which is easily damaged by the heat from a soldering iron. The actual connectors are not made of copper but possibly carbon or some other conductive material. My advice is, do not try to fix dead horizontal lines. You’ll likely just mess up the connector as seen below.
Why dead horizontal lines are harder to fix…
There’s a (relatively) well-known method of fixing dead lines on the DMG-01 (classic Gameboy) LCD screen which consists of dragging a hot soldering iron across the connection of the brown plastic connector with an epoxy blob, and the glass. The right spot in underneath where there’s normally a black rubber strip. This will reflow the glue, solder or whatever is used for the attachment, and the method can usually successfully fix dead vertical lines.
Sometimes people ask whether horizontal lines can be fixed as well. I’ve always assumed that the connector on the right side of the screen, which would be at fault if there are dead vertical lines, is basically identical, and that the only problem with fixing horizontal lines is the more awkward position of the connection — the “ribbon” is connected on the bottom side of the LCD glass, so you need to fit the soldering iron into a small corner without damaging anything.
However, the ribbon connector on the right side is different and more fragile. If you look at the top image, you’ll see a connector that looks brown. Technically speaking, this is called a flexible PCB (printed circuit board.) Just like on a regular, rigid PCB — like the display daughterboard itself — you have copper traces for connections and a green solder mask. The black blob in the middle is an integrated circuit, not unlike the chips you would see on any other circuit board, only that this one is hidden within a blob made of epoxy, and the circuit on the chip is connected directly to the copper traces, rather than using external pins soldered to a circuit board.
The right side connector has a similar flexible PCB, but the last stretch of the connection is made by a flimsy white plastic material which is easily damaged by the heat from a soldering iron. The actual connectors are not made of copper but possibly carbon or some other conductive material. My advice is, do not try to fix dead horizontal lines. You’ll likely just mess up the connector as seen below.
April 27 2011
If the English language made any sense…
“If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.”
~Doug Larson
February 05 2011
Simon Lundströms manga-dom och jakten på de friade bilderna
(Mixed language post. Swedish=blue left border. English=red left border. Warning! No hotlinking, unless you have a goatse fetish!)
Jag skulle kunna diskutera det totalt absurda i att lagen, med den goda föresikten att skydda barn, förbjuder tecknade bilder som inte föreställer ett faktiskt övergrepp, men det har redan gjorts på ett flertal ställen i den svenska bloggosfären. Så istället tänker jag försöka mig på att testa mina Google-skillz och stilla min nyfikenhet genom att försöka hitta de bilder som bedömdes ligga inom lagens råmärken.
I could discuss the absurd law, which basically creates a thought crime, but instead, I will try to still my curiosity and test my Google skills, to see if I can find the 12 images that were ruled to be legal under Swedish law.
Fyra bilder ansågs inte nå upp till lagens definition av “barn”: isen01.jpg, c_girl.jpg, SINO1S.JPG, SINO2S.JPG
Åtta bilder ansågs inte nå upp till lagens definition av “porr”: han.050.jpg, han.051.jpg, n09.jpg, tsurupeta3.jpg, 022x.jpg, CRSN0201.PNG och två filer vid namn _09.JPG. (Kanske två kopior av samma fil.)
Four pictures did not depict children, as defined by the law: isen01.jpg, c_girl.jpg, SINO1S.JPG, SINO2S.JPG
Eight pictures did not depict pornograhy, as defined by the law: han.050.jpg, han.051.jpg, n09.jpg, tsurupeta3.jpg, 022x.jpg, CRSN0201.PNG and two files named _09.JPG, possibly duplicates.
isen01.jpg
c_girl.jpg
???
Den andra sökresultatet är en tråd från 2004 på något forum där folk har postat sxrivbordsbilder. En av länkarna går till http://www.vt.sakura.ne.jp/%7Eccc/tukihime/c_girl.jpg som är borttagen, troligen sedan länge nu, och WayBackMachine har inte en kopia av bilden heller. En mapp i sökvägen heter tukihime, och t(s)ukihime (月姫, Lunar Princess) visar sig vara ett eroge (erotiskt spel)/visual novel gjort av amatörstudion Type-Moon. Dock hittar jag ingen c_girl.jpg på deras server. Med tanke på att materialet i tråden samt Type-Moons “extra”-avdelning inte är -särkilt avklätt gissar jag att denna c_girl.jpg inte är vad vi letar efter, även om det inte är omöjligt.
Det tredje och sista sökresultatet, med denna sökmetod, visar sig vara en proxy-logg av något slag, där man hittar URLen http://plaza28.mbn.or.jp/~miragenovels/jpeg/garou/c_girl.jpg som är död. Den här gången har dock WayBackMachine en kopia från år 2000 viket är vad du ser ovan. Även om det är lite långsökt kan det vara rätt bild.
Z, om du läser detta och (inte) känner igen bilden eller om tsukihime låter bekant, lämna gärna en kommentar.
The second result is a “post your desktop” thread on some forum from 2004, where one of the links go to http://www.vt.sakura.ne.jp/%7Eccc/tukihime/c_girl.jpg. That particular image is long gone (and WayBackMachine doesn’t have it.) Further research shows that t(s)ukihime (月姫, Lunar Princess) is an eroge (erotic game)/visual novel made by a doujin called Type-Moon. However, no c_girl.jpg was to be found anywhere on that site. Judging from the character of the other images in that in the desktop thread, as well as the “extra” material on the Type-Moon I think it’s unlikely, but not impossible that whatever image was posted there as c_girl.jpg was the right one.
The third and last result, using this search methodology, turns out to be a proxy log of some sort. In there you find the URL http://plaza28.mbn.or.jp/~miragenovels/jpeg/garou/c_girl.jpg which is dead. However, WayBackMachine has a copy from 2000 which is what you’re seeing above. Even though this is a bit far fetched, it might be the right image.
Z, if you’re reading this and recognize (or not) the image above, or if tsukihime rings a bell, feel free to leave a comment.
SINO1S.JPG, SINO2S.JPG
) I also tried adding katakana for loli to the query for fun “SINO1.JPG” “SINO2.JPG” ロリ, which gave me two results, both of which were fruitless.
han.050.jpg, han.051.jpg
n09.jpg
tsurupeta3.jpg
) Därför tänker jag inte länka till bilden här. Den som vill kan på eget risk googla efter tsurupeta3.jpg, klicka på det översta resultatet och titta på bild nr 3.
022x.jpg, CRSN0201.PNG, _09.JPG
January 31 2011
Yo dawg, we heard you like like-likes!
Made out of boredom… (Click for slightly higher resolution…)
Bonus:
Whoever put up this poster scored a few “unintended irony” points for misspelling “Academy of Linguistic Awareness” as “Acadamy of Linguistic Awarness”.
January 25 2011
Modules #2 and #3: An ADSR envelope and as XR-VCO
Here’s an update, without a big write-up yet. I’ve added two modules to my panel.
1) An ADSR envelope. In itself a pretty boring video, but you can only do so much with a VCO, an ADSR and a bench-top sine generator without a voltage-controllable frequency.
2) The XR-VCO. This is where it gets interesting.
XR-VCO - Cross-modulations (Lots of annotations explaining what’s going on.)
XR-VCO - Sync+linear FM. (No annotations explaining what’s going on yet, but some phat sounds.)
I’ve also added another panel with 4 straight tele <-> banana converters (no buffering or level-shifting or anything) and a power module, so I can use a regular AC adapter to power the thing, rather than a bench-top power supply. I’ll post pictures and a write-up of the build later.
January 07 2011
And so my modular journey begins
Introduction
So here’s the deal. A couple of years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the world of modular synthesizers at a school where he was enrolled, where they had a pretty big, original ’70s Serge with cherry-picked set of modules (I’m assuming) as well as an original Buchla 200 series system from that era. I like the sound of the Buchla oscillators, but in all other aspects, I’ve fallen in love with the Serge. You see, I’m an engineer type of person and I appreciate the atomic structure of the Serge paradigm. As for any Serge-lover of rank, my favorite module is the DUSG. You’ll have to look long and hard for a more versatile module. If I could build a rack consisting of several pieces of only one type of module, that would definitely be it.
So, I quickly learned the basics of knob twiddling and banana sex, (
) but both me and my friend had the problem that we didn’t have our own modular systems. Using a fully equipped system at an institution is great, except that you need to actually go there etc. The next logical step is obviously to get our own synths. He is a lucky bastard who happens to have a rich mom, with the effect that he has bought 1-2 modules a month for two years straight. He now has 9U or so worth of Euro.
I on the other hand am piss-poor and a terminal procrastinator but have access to a component store and even a PCB manufacturing facility at university. The outcome is obvious. I decided to build a DIY modular. I have a number of mostly finished boards without panels, which is what I’m working on now. However, none of the boards are Serge clones, which would be nice. With a the exception of a couple of modules available from CGS, it’s pretty difficult to find Serge schematics. Which I can understand since they’re still in production.
Right now, I wish I had the schematic for a Wilson Analog Delay, for example. (I just realized I have a TDA1024 delay circuit. If you have the schematic, feel free to contact me. No questions asked, and I’ll promise not to spread it or use it for profit.) My homemade modular will use banana all the way (of course).
Build log of my first finished module
So, I finally finished a first module the other day. (I have PCBs for more, but I need to make panels and I also don’t have enough LM13700s and I’m also missing a couple of other chips.) I’m doing all of this work on my university’s electronics student club, so part of the challenge I’ve partaken, is trying to use their component stock as far as I can. This is sometimes difficult, as most of their components are surplus donations from companies.
This is the first module I finish in the sense that it has a workable front panel. The module is an Oakley VC-LFO.
First things first, I added a Doepfer style pin header in place of the MOTM/Oakley header.
Add some superglue for stability…
… and some hot glue for more stability.
Tada! This is an odd pin header with an extra notch, that I don’t know the use for. Doesn’t really matter.
(If you’re observant you’ll notice that this isn’t actually the VC-LFO board pictured below, but another board. But I did the same process to all the Oakley boards I have.)
Here’s a shelf that will house 12 U worth of modules some day. Note the marks where I’ll drill holes for the screws so I can secure the rack ears.
Ok, onto yesternight’s build. First some space planning.
Drilling the holes. I made a mistake here. I laid out the design on the wrong side of the board so I need to have the side with the more scratches and the markings facing the front. (Unless I flip it in either direction.) Oh well…
This is the side that is now the front:
This is the side that is now the back:
The board, with a home-made angled bracket. I reused this kind of aluminum sheet because it already has holes in it at regular distances. Also note the other ugly things. The upper right IC socket should have held a matched transistor pair in a DIP package but I didn’t have one. Tried to match the transistors the best I cold, still. The empty IC socket isn’t completely empty. Look closely and you’ll realize there’s a small piece of wire there. This was because my DG403 hack (see below) didn’t quite work out.
This is my DG403 hack. The schematic specifies DG403, which is a dual DPST-type analog switch. All I could find in the lab was DG404, which is supposedly a weird half DG403 equivalent, which I could only find a Japanese datasheet for. Oh well, close enough, so I thought I’d stack two of them on top of each other and wire up my own makeshift DG403. However, it didn’t work out too well; it just didn’t work. This was after many hours of being awake, so I didn’t bother troubleshooting the thing. Instead, I just hardwired the default-on setting with a piece of wire, which works but disables the sync function for now.
Here’s the board attached to the panel. Getting closer (to falling asleep) now…
Fully equipped. Note that everything is modular, so you can release the board and all frontpanel components without cutting any wires or destroying anything else. Note that I drilled a hole too much. Not sure what to do with it yet. Perhaps AC-coupled FM…
And finally, the thing in all its glory. The panel is 3 U high (fits a Euro rack) and some unspecified width (less than 19″ wide.) I’m obviously planning to add one or more additional modules to the same panel.
In the future, I’m planning to do the following:
Finally make panels for the module boards I have. This includes:
Oakley triple VCA
Oakley slew generator
Oakley noise generator
(Managed to buy three Oakley board for cheap)
SSM2010 VCA
2*filter, home-made by someone (LP/BP/HP -12 dB/Oct)
A homemade ADSR envelope that someone had thrown away at the lab! Thank you, Someone!
A 16-step 4067-based sequencer (still needs a digital part for control. I’ll probably whip something together on my Arduino.)
Homemade polarizing mixer.
Probably something more that I’m forgetting.
Gotta build me a DUSG, too! (Very important! Could save someone’s life one day!)
I also have a couple of guitar pedals that I’m hoping to modularize.
Furthermore, I found a bunch of surface mount CA3080 in the lab. I’m planning to make a LM13700->CA3080 adapter with place for two CA3080s and optional diodes and drive transistors.
Sounds like a plan, uh? Just gotta make sure I don’t go back to procrastinating…
November 21 2010
Unfinished LSDj drafts
So, I’ve decided to share with you a few videos of a few LSDj drafts that I’ll probably never finish. In each video I also show some of the techniques I’ve used. I think the songs kind of suck, but perhaps they can inspire someone. The names are just what I’ve happened to call the files in LSDj, so the names are nonsensical. Feel free to comment or criticize. More will come in a while… (I tend to not finish my songs…)
EN
RNB
J
SSSSS
November 08 2010
Public release of LittleFM 0.4
It’s finally time for the release of LittleFM 0.4, which is an alternative file manager for LSDj that lets you store songs in the flash memory of the cartridge, for increased storage and security. I was going to make it feature complete before releasing, but since I haven’t been making any major improvements to it for months, I thought I’d release this version as it is, for the moment.
Before using LittleFM, please read the description below to understand how i works and what it is and what it isn’t. (Better spend that extra time than do a mistake and lose data because you didn’t realize how LFM works…)
Description
LittleFM is an alternative file manager for LSDj that lets you store 8 “projects” (savs) in flash memory. These can be saved and loaded just like you would save or load a sav file from/to your computer.
In the long run, it’s also supposed to become a full drop-in replacement for LSDj’s own file manager, allowing you to load, save and delete files within a sav. To this end, LittleFM is not yet feature complete. Version 0.4 can only load files, not save or delete them. However, the load function is much faster, slightly more glitch resistant, and warns you when you’re trying to load a file that is corrupted. (Rather than loading forever or crashing as LSDj’s manager might do.)
Installation
LittleFM comes in the form of an IPS patch. To install it, you need a copy of the LSDj 4.0.5 ROM and an IPS patcher. WinIPS seems to work well enough on Windows. If you’re on some other OS, or want to try a different patching software, check out Zophar’s Domain. Simply use the LSDj 4.0.5 ROM as the source file and the IPS patch as the patch. This will output a patched ROM that you can use.
Compatibility
LittleFM can currently only save savs to the flash of cartridges based on the GB Flasher design, such as BleepBloop and SmartBoy cartridges.
This feature does not work on EMS cartridges, either the old blue ones or the newer EMS USB cartidges, because they don’t allow the Gameboy program to write to flash.
Other, more exotic cartridges might or might not work. If you have any other cartridge, or technical information on how to write to the flash of the white Nintendo Power cartridge, please contact me.
However, it’s still fully possible to prepare a ROM image that contains a number of pre-made savs and load those as needed, since that doesn’t require you to write to flash from the Gameboy.
Backing up
- If you’ve stored songs in flash and want to back them up to your computer, make sure to choose 2048 kB as the size in the transfer program, or your song data won’t be backed up.
- Clicking erase in the transfer program will (obviously) erase any files saved in flash. Think before you click!
Gameboy functionality
Flash operations
- Provides backup to flash and increased storage.
- load/save project loads/saves the FULL sav, including all the files
files to one of 8 flash banks. However, it will not confirm that
you’re saving to the right one, so be careful not to ovewrite a
different project! - Flash/load song does not work yet.
- Clear project: Obvious what it does, eh? (Note: No need to
manually clear a project before saving.) - Load song from flash does not work. Thus, you can’t load an
individual song from flash yet.
RAM operations
- Load song does exactly the same thing as the regular LSDj file
manager, but faster and more securely. If you get an error message,
there’s a small chance that there’s a bug in the program, but a
greater chance that the sav is actually corrupt. Report what the error
said to me and please attach the sav for analysis. (LFM will display
an error where the regular manager would load forever or do something
else strange.) - Save song. No workie in this version!
- Del song. No workie in this version!
- You also can’t create a new empty song with LFM. Use the regular
manager for that.
General usage
- The menu system should be self-explanatory for LSDj users.
- You can press B at the main menu to exit to LSDj.
- In LSDj you can also press a Tetris/Zelda style sel+start+B+A to get back to LFM. It works even if LSDj is hung up because of extreme table/vibrato/kit pressure. (Might be safer than turning the power of the Gameboy off.)
- However keep in mind that this function will not do anything “special” about LSDj’s key handling. In other words it’s fully possible to hit B+A first and accidentally a chain or note. Something to look out for if you’re wondering where that chain went.
Planned features
- Make LFM a feature complete replacement for LSDj’s file manager.
- Various usability improvements.
- Song trading over link cable.
- Possibly even kit trading over link cable!
- A “chkdsk” option that lets you verify that your songs are 100% free from corruption.
- A super-duper patcher that program for computers, that lets you patch any LSDj version with LittleFM as well as do file management better than LSD-manager.
But, in all honesty, programming super-fast “spaghetti” assembly language takes time and effort. If you’ve fallen in love with LittleFM and you want to see the it evolve, you can encourage me by donating a dollar or three so I can keep my caffeine level high at all times. All donations of $2 or higher will be credited here with a name and link of your choice. Or, if you’d feel like it, buy me Flickr Pro. Or just say thanks and reports any bugs you encounter. 
maltemark
October 06 2010
Jason Scott - An Internet historian with a taste for the obscure
So this is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night when I should be sleeping.
Meet Jason Scott - the guy who is literally an Internet historian. Apparently, what started out as a hobby, as a result of his own involvement with the BBS world, later became a full-time job as he managed to raise $25,000 on Kickstarter. The calling of his life is basically to collect as much (preferably obscure) information as he can for the future, both digital and physical. Text files. Cracktros. Shareware CDs. Floppy disks. Old issues of 2600 magazine with hardware projects that that came with the magazine at the time. He know has a container full of old goods, which, as he puts it, he doesn’t own, but is only preserving for the future.
So this post will just link to his sites. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to explore his works. I actually haven’t explored most of his sites yet, so this post is in part a reminder to myself.
I only found out about Jason today when watching his Defcon 18 presentation (part 1 2 3 4) called “You’re stealing it wrong - 30 years of inter-pirate battles”. It’s the story of how the piracy scene has evolved over the years, all the way from when IBM sold hardware and software as a bundle, to the days of Apple ][ cracking, BBSs sharing scanned images from Playboy, all the way to the internal politics of today’s scene. It contains equal parts nostalgia and humor. (BTW, the videos were uploaded by ChRiStIaAn008 who’s uploading talks from various security conferences. Highly recommended despite the ghawd-awful background image.)
These sites of his are listed at the end of his presentation:
bbsdocumentary.com is the website of Jason’s documentary about the BBS world.
textfiles.com contains various text files from BBSs and other places, sorted in 40 categories. Puts my own Gameboy file archive, that I’ve hardly started working on, to shame.
cd.textfiles.com contains a shit tonne of shareware CDs from the 90s for those may be interested.
getlamp.com is not a site where you can get a LAMP stack; rather, the name alludes to old text based games such as Zork, and Get Lamp is the name of a documentary about those. (Side note: For my Swedish reader, I recommend the classic text-based game Stugan!)
Archiveteam is a site dedicated to mirroring content.
Geociti.es is an effort to mirror as much as possible of Geocities after it was shut down.
Sockington is one of Jason’s two cats.
Welcome to Internet! A hearty welcome (cordial reception) , in case this is your first day online.
Quoting Martin Korth: “And you? Given the ability of free choice, full control over your mind and body, where would you click?”
September 14 2010
Gameboy development and music tool file archive
I’ve just started a Gameboy development and music file archive with the aim to find and mirror Gameboy-related utilities for music and software development. Currently, the only useful section is the music tools folder, but I’m planning to expand the development tools folder as well. If you have any file that you would like to see added, or just want to comment on the idea, feel free to leave a comment here, mail me on the address given below, or join the discussion on chipmusic.org.
Thanks to Scott Evans for making Indices and thus providing useful information.
September 07 2010
My new mouse pad
Design:
Result:
May 31 2010
いちご
Red, sweet strawberries…
…with Swedish sourcream. Delicious!
But all good things must come to an end.
May 06 2010
NES RetroVision – Gameboy on a NES cartridge
Finally a new post on gbdev.gg8.se - go and read it.
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