As the year inextricably moves on with some of us seeing new growth and rebirth of the spring whilst others enjoy darker, cooler days of autumn (and some endure spring in their autumn years) we avoided the cardinal sins of discussing politics and religion, instead meandering through such subjects as:
- How to avoid the pain of poorly presented adverts on YouTube on a Roku (without paying for the privileged)
- Adventures with STM32F103C8 including:
- 3 port MIDI / USB interface that presents each physical MIDI port as a different MIDI channel to the USB port
- CV/GATE - I2C - USB interface providing 8 of each: CV input, CV output, GATE input, GATE output
- This wonderful multi-port MIDI / USB router / processor (that I couldn’t get to compile)
- …and similar interfaces already designed by others like a monophonic USB MIDI to CV converter and a USB MIDI 12 GATE, 16 CV interface (Teensy based)
- Why not use a Pi Pico? Too few UARTS / ADC pins
- A Pi cluster is being built that might run a powerful Zynthian - early stage development so little info but there is another cluster of picos out there
- Some have spent money on such things as a digital osciloscope whilst others are planning to spend money on instruments that sing in Japanese
- Of course you could always just build your own modular osciloscope
- In the mean time some of us need to break out our soldering irons and fix that notoriously bad SH-101 power switch - we heard a demonstration of how it can be used as a vibrator controller!
- The Zynthian Discourse search facility was maligned but I was able to find the link to a discussion on the Zynthian build process
- The Tracker Mini from Polyend was released with a rather familiar look. It seems all the cool kids are putting big screens and buttons on their kit these days! (Warning: The Polyend website contains flashing images - not aiming at the old and the infirm.)
- Are modular laptops really good for the environment and worth their premium cost or will they too end up in landfill if the companies that make them don’t survive?
- If you wear a tin-foil hat to bed then maybe you might consider a privacy focused mobile phone
- When you have an interface for an ancient bit of tech worth about $20, is it worth spending about $180 to buy the device it interfaces to (and probably more for something to attach to the other end)? Even if it can hack ATMs!
- If you leave a UART input un-terminated and let it produce random MIDI, are you creating intergalactic compositions? (I think not, given that most messages are 0xFF reset)
- Isn’t MIDI 1.0 BRILLIANT!!! Praise was made at its alter
- Toffees were lost and found then enjoyed and (kinda) shared
- A 10-part drama about a fictional 1970’s rock band called, “Daisy Jones and the Six” is streaming on Amazon Prime in the UK which is a fun watch - spot the writer’s influences like Fleetwood Mac and Donna Summer
- If you buy a Blue Pill STM32F103C8 based board from China you may well get a clone like the CS32F103 even if the chip has STM32 printed on it which can cause issues - be careful out there!
The sun set and it rose and we went our separate ways. Some to slumber peacefully at the end of a hard day’s work with all this rubbish talked clouding our dreams whilst others started their working day, fresh with these random subjects haunting their normal lives.