#1

I hate to live in the past but was mulling a few ideas
several of them led me back here revisiting this exact question

If we could address aleph w/ii commands like any other trilogy/expander module it would be great (imagine some of the madness Just Type whet our appetite for…)

Any suggestions to get the ball rolling on this? I’m not sure how much help I could be or how this might be done…

#2

It’s been along time since I’ve looked at the ii bits in the code.

IIRC there was a voltage difference 5v for the aleph and 3.3v for the modules but I could well be imaging this.

One concern I had was how to properly protect the ii bus from accidental connection to cv or audio if the module used 3.5mm jacks. I had spent some time looking for a different style of connector that was durable and compact…

Do you see the aleph as a master (like the tt) or slave (like the trilogy)? EDIT - I see you are thinking of aleph as a slave. In a way I now see that as more interesting than as a master.

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#3

Huge can of worms and probably for another old thread but…What would stop us from running tt code on aleph? Might be a paradigm clash since many commands and ops overlap

Anyway lets stay focused on one thing at a time

#4

Probably not as hard as you think. Someone would need to step up to do the leg work though.

You’d probably want to hard fork the teletype codebase, then you can customise the ops in a manor sympathetic to the Aleph.

How would you interact with the DSP/BFIN bits? I guess in a similar way to sending II commands to modules.

Sorry. (Seriously though, if you do find a coder with the time, desire and expertise to want to port Teletype over to the Aleph, I’d be more than happy to help with info and support. At this point I know the Teletype codebase inside and out.)

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Aleph Teletype Port
#5

Should we start a new thread? I mentioned some of this to one other user but I care enough about it that I’d be willing to (slowly) nibble away at this port myself

I know it shouldn’t be too hard especially with guidance

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#6

Definitely start a new thread.

#7

cannot totally kill my curiosity about potential ii usage with aleph for some reason

i’m only aware of one successful project which involved the ii port: @Test2 crafted a diy box for comm between aleph and vestax turntables to control mechanical functions

tho i could use cv or usb for certain ideas i’m curious about how to connect to norns/tt/crow or other i2c capable devices

is this board tehn shared the best way (usb-ii)? or TXb? or 16n?

If none of those would work is this just a lost cause?

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#8

I’m right there with you… Just juggling the many things competing for time. Literally within the last 24 hr I’ve started to think about the relationship between aleph, crow, and the modular world again.

Maybe we should talk about specifics as to what might be a good first step…

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#9

FWIW - txb is basically a tiny powered busboard that adapts a couple stereo minijack connectors to ii jumpers.

16n is a teensy at heart and one could potentially do a variant of that firmware with just an i2c connector on the teensy - so it becomes a usb (midi? Serial?) to i2c bridge.

The adafruit thing I need to look at further.

#11

the adafruit & 16n both seem like they would translate midi to i2c messages…so by taking advantage of existing midi ops it should be an easy way to get immediate results

TXb would be most ideal because it provides a direct ii bus connection between 3.5mm & ribbon cabling

what i don’t know is whether firmware mods (or creation of an I2C op) would be needed to address aleph properly in the bus network

#12

yes firmware work necessary. there are II event callbacks in the app framework; bees doesn’t use them.

#13

just ordered some adapters for 3.5mm to 3pin and can connect to my other devices
if firmware mod is eventually available
i’d be happy to test

also went digging around to see what has already been done (does aleph have an address? have any commands been implemented?) and found this:

comparing with this to wrap my head around how commands might be handled crow/lua side

#14

yeah only the basic functionality has been tested. it should not be hard to add knowledge of the II ecosystem (pulled from libavr32). guess i’d keep the raw event type in the “OS” layer (IIRC that also works fine right now - the source you linked is an even earlier standalone hardware test) and leave device-specific stuff to the “app” layer.

i wish i could say i’m going to work on this. but realistically there is just no way. (i don’t even really have a eurorack setup anyways.) i do have some particular desires for a new aleph standalone firmware (no bees, no sdcard.)

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#15

hey i’m glad you mentioned that cause i forgot to add to my last message…i have no expectation of you doing the legwork on this for a few reasons

also i have all the equipment i need to try making the hack myself (and am pretty motivated by curiosity)

i’d rather you direct energy toward music and more recent dev projects obviously

…that said

that is cool to know and i’d definitely be excited to see what you cook up

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