I'm QUITE excited (but we have seen this before...)

[arjepsen]

I have managed to get myself a bit excited.....
Before I started a new education as an electronics engineer, I was messing around with trying to put the psu's inside the console.
I'm not finished with that project, and I don't think it's a hack for the faint of heart....

Anyways, since I always like to procrastinate, but diving into some of my other thousand projects, I got into seeing if I could sniff out the communication between the console and CPU unit.
My thought has been, that if I got that communication sorted, maybe it would be possible to make a new interface, using something a bit more modern, like... say... a raspberry pi, or an ESP32.....

Anyways, I am not entirely certain, how far others have gotten with this, and I couldn't find a lot of info.
I know that the probox guy (Munkustrap, right?) got the communication working to the brain board, but there are two communications going on between the console and cpu-unit: one to the brain board, and one to the DSP board.

It is so very early in this development for me, and it's quite possible that this will end up exactly where all the other projects like this has ended.
But well - I'm excited - I'm allowed to be

So far I have managed to send the firmware to the Brain board, and are able to turn on and off various LEDS, and move some faders.
This is nothing new though, others have managed that.

However, it seems the brain board has no control over sound... it only controls the LED's, display and faders.
I guess that when you move a fader, mr. Bwian sends info to the cpu, which in turn update the ui on the monitor, and sends info to the DSP board about the fader position.
I am excited because I have managed to turn up and down the volume on the channels, so with a bit of luck, it should be possible at least to map out the DSP workings.... (woohoo).

Anyways, sorry... I don't know if anything will ever come of this, but like I said, I got excited when I managed to fiddle with the sound side of the d8b

[captainamerica]

reverse engineering is not easy arjepsen......hopefully you will make some progress

[Old School]

I am quite excited as well!!! Please keep us informed.

Have a blessed day,
Mike

[arjepsen]

I will.
So far I think I have found the codes and workings on how to turn the faders up/down, mute channels, pan, solo and a bit more.
I have tried booting just the brainboard without the PC, but I haven't tried to boot both the brain and the DSP.
However, I have logged the communication on both coms during boot, so I believe it's not that difficult.

The most difficult part will be to put all the small functionalities together - that might be a bigger project, and I have no experience in making UI's.
BUT if I can put down the information framework, and maybe make a python script or cpp program that uploads the firmwares, then the road should be open for anyone who whishes to make their own ui, running on a device of their choice.

[arjepsen]

Just a small update, and a request.
I'm slowly mapping out the communication on both the brain and the dsp.
It's relatively easy, when something visible happens on the console - much more difficult, when nothing happens

Anyways, I'm closing in on understanding the whole communication for the brain board.
One tricky part is, that after loading the firmware (control.asc), there are some queries on whats installed in the IO cages.
The commands that makes the query to the brain board are:
80p - first IO slot
81p - second IO slot
82p - third IO slot
83p - alt IO slot
84p - Digital IO slot.

The brain replies to one of these with a long string of ascii codes in hex format, separated by p's, like:

Code: Select all

28p43p29p20p32p30p30p30p20p4Dp61p63p6Bp69p65p20p44p65p73p69p67p6Ep73p20p7Bp4Dp61p63p6Bp69p65p20p4Fp70p74p2Dp38p20p32p34p2Dp42p69p74p20p41p44p41p54p20p4Cp69p67p68p74p20p50p69p70p65p20p49p2Fp4Fp7Dp0Dp

would be: (C) 2000 Mackie Designs {Mackie Opt-8 24-Bit ADAT Light Pipe I/O}

Now, I have both the OPT8 cards and tape cards.
But if anyone would have been crazy enough to do something similar and made a serial com sniffer, I would like to be able to include the other possible cards in my documentation, and hopefully later on a full program.

[arjepsen]

I think I'm getting closer to the first milestone: getting sound through the mixer without booting from the CPU.
I've gotten it to boot up pretty well now - to the point where the vu meters react, when I play music on the inputs.
I'm a bit uncertain though, whether this is controlled by the brain or the DSP board.
Probably need to gleen over the manual, to check the signal routing, and figure out how to open the right thingiemabobs.

[Y-my-R]

This DOES sound REALLY exciting, and it would be amazing, to finally be able to ditch that noisy PC from the last millennium, while making the Console somewhat "futureproof" again!

Unfortunately, I don't really have anything useful to contribute. I do have some bits and pieces from conversations with munkustrap about how things like the Meters on the D8B are controlled by the ProBox (aka via the Mackie Control protocol), but that's all "AFTER" the translation of what the D8B sends, and once it's in MCU format... and that stuff was mostly SysEx strings.

I think munkustrap/Ralph probably would have a lot of useful knowledge on this stuff, but probably only on how to interact with the brain board, not with the DSP board, since the ProBox doesn't deal with that (in fact, Ralph sold me his clock and expansion cards some years back, since he runs his D8B as a controller only, and doesn't use the cards).

He's been openly sharing details of ProBox communication stuff with me, that I had issues with, so maybe he'd be supportive with your quest to replace the D8B rack unit as well, and would share what he's got. I'd recommend to ask him... not much that can go wrong

When I tried to get the Mackie OS working in a virtual machine, I already got stuck with getting the GUI to load, since the video card appeared to insist on some special memory access, where I think that the registers were "hard-mapped" to what the D8B expects for that, and I couldn't get emulations of the video card, to start in that special memory mode of sorts (forgot what that was called, exactly... it's been some time).
But sounds like you got around that, already? Since the OS boots past that point and passes audio?

This is indeed exciting though! I'm using my D8B a lot less, lately, but most of my problems seem to stem from the rack unit and/or the communication with it. So, if that could be eliminated as the source of frequent issues, I think I could "embrace" the D8B a lot more again.

I'm definitely cheering you on from a distance!

[arjepsen]

Well, good news:
Today I have managed to play some music on the line ins, and get it out through the headhpone jacks!
My scripts are a crude big mess, but - houston we have sound.
I still haven't gotten it out through the mains yet - I suspect there's a lot of routing to take care of, but for me, this was the first big milestone: sound out.
The "rest" is just mapping out a lot of commands, and make a program that can handle the ins and outs... oh year, and then a gui.... and the fx's....

[Old School]

Hi,
What a great accomplishment!! I know you still have a lot of work to do, but this is great!

Have a blessed day,
Mike

[arjepsen]

This DOES sound REALLY exciting, and it would be amazing, to finally be able to ditch that noisy PC from the last millennium, while making the Console somewhat "futureproof" again!

Unfortunately, I don't really have anything useful to contribute. I do have some bits and pieces from conversations with munkustrap about how things like the Meters on the D8B are controlled by the ProBox (aka via the Mackie Control protocol), but that's all "AFTER" the translation of what the D8B sends, and once it's in MCU format... and that stuff was mostly SysEx strings.

By the way, feel free to send any information you have my way - I might have it already, but it could just contain that one piece of information that makes figuring out one specific detail easier...