Zyklus-MPS

In my quest to write a manual for Direct, I’ve been going through the code with a pair of tweezers, along with the machine trying stuff out. A lot of the functionality is pretty straight forward and I got it mapped out, but some pattern / sequence related stuff threw me for a loop. My […]

On the Zyklus MPS front, there’s a lot brewing as wel. In essence we could now release everything as open source, where people can build their own and run it on the old MPS-1 software. But wouldn’t it be nice to have the ReZyklus variant of the software? I managed to find a linker and […]

The winter is coming, long dark evenings ahead for many a new hobby project. For Direct, I have quite a few things lined up: Replace all tantalum caps Create a better solid power supply Get the MELCARDS working and create a MELCARD writer to connect to USB Write a manual Create a schematic of the […]

Most of the old Z80 assembly code has been ported to a more modern variant (z88dk-z80asm) – thanks to David for translating quite a lot of it. Now I can build new EPROMS and burn them, but the better and quicker way, I thought, would be using EPROM Emulators so I can upload the bin […]

Time for a little Re-Zyklus update: The original machine had very heavy duty aluminum Encoder Dials. Some of the builders have tried 3d printed alternatives but just to see how it would pan out, I had JLCPCB create aluminum ones in black (would fit nicely with the white panels done by Paul). Thanks to user […]

The original system had a dedicated MIDI breakout box, connected using an EDAC connector. There was another box for the audio connections. It was hard to find, but I managed to find a picture showing the original box: It uses the same midi and jack connectors as the Zyklus MPS. So I set out to […]

Not a whole lot to update lately. Just a few things: The PCB Paul created for the memory card came in. It’s again a work of art….   I’m going to arrange for a company to map out the old memory card connections towards the IDC. The pins are too thin to measure by hand, […]

Although some details still remain to be done or finished, Direct is now fully running and usable. There were a few issues trying to get it to this point: There was a short on the newly soldered joints for the replacement button panel, which caused Track and Thru switch 4 and 5 to trigger simultaneously. […]

I’ll elaborate more soon on what the hiccups were, but here she is, running Version 1.7, which is actually 1.5 but slightly modified by me. I can’t connect it yet to any keyboards as I’m still working on making the breakout box, but here she is, alive and kicking!    

When I first got the original code, I set out to find the correct compilers and linker, as I did for Zyklus as well. Looking at the batch scripts used for compiling as well as some map files that remained, it was quickly discovered that the used tool chain was by Microtec.  Through the ‘internet […]