After a few days of studying and helpful replies from Steve in tech support, I’d figured out Lattice Semiconductor’s free design software ispLEVER Classic, and successfully downloaded a simple ‘hello world’ demo to a Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD) chip. My highest hopes were confirmed… all the steps are possible without writing a line of code. Hooray! You can draw a schematic on the screen and transform it to a piece of hardware in seconds. What a futuristic feeling. The chip itself is some kind of silicon fabric made of zillions of nano-size zombies that reconfigure themselves on command…?! anyway, I’m not scared.  Indeed I’m thrilled with the power of this technique.

The software is free, its called ispLEVER Classic 1.4. Installing it on my Vista laptop wasn’t quite a snap because there are three or four modules to install in order, and you need to find your computer’s MAC address to activate the license. I have to use ‘run as administrator’ to launch it too, but whatever.

The programmer is called ispDOWNLOAD, and it was about $175.

The CPLD chip is ispLSI2032VE, actually nearly obsolete now but the software still supports it.

I think soon I will try to understand Lattice’s MachXO series. They’re related to FPGAs, have built in dual-port RAM, clock generator, clock multiplier… a nice toolbox.

Its inspiring to think that even if the schematic in your head is extra complex, you can just draw it and *boom* little elves build it for you in seconds.

Of course its limited to digital circuits. Not analog yet…

Closeup of the breadboard adapter.  In addition to the socketed CPLD, it has a JTAG 2×5 programming header, a 3.3V regulator, three capacitors, and a resistor.

Note on clock rise times:  CPLDs are capable of running very fast clock rates, 100MHz+.  In my example circuit shown above, I found the counter was behaving anomalously, skipping states.  The root of the problem is related to rise time of the clock pulses.   Logic can be 0 or 1, but the rise time is how long it takes for a transition to occur.  Imagine a horse race and everybody is on the starting line ready to go… the flag goes up, but very slowly.   Will everybody start at exactly the same moment?  This is an analogy for clocking the CPLD.  I found that clock sources that worked fine with 74HC TTL and CD4000 CMOS often do not have a quick enough rise time to clock this CPLD without glitching.  The clock generator built in to my old-school Knight breadboard has a 150 nanosecond rise time, which is too slow.  Experimenting, I found that 10 nanoseconds appears to be fast enough for reliable clocking.  A 74HC244 buffer IC works well for conditioning real-world inputs.

a short documentary demonstrating an experimental field recording technique. lets roll from new jersey to brooklyn and listen to hidden sounds outside the window.  please pardon the shaky video.

more sound camera recordings

personal faves

• So Percussion performing Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet, with Mr. Reich in attendance for a post-concert Q&A.
• MURAL creative improv by Norwegians Ingar Zach and Kim Myhr, with Jim Denley (Australia) on woodwinds.
• Ellen Fullman’s Long String Instrument in the historic Seaholm Power Plant, with Travis Weller and Nick Hennies on the ‘box bows’.  I am kicking myself for not bringing a camera to this rarely-opened space.  The audience was seated in the turbine hall, beneath an enormous overhead crane running the length of the hall, its ominous, rusty 75-ton hoist hook dangling above our heads, and the concrete floor interrupted by huge eccentrically shaped holes once occupied by turbines, offering a spooky view downward thru several levels of subfloor to pools of dark water.
• Arc Attack.  These guys keep adding more crazy to the show, the coils are 6 feet tall now and the MC donned a full metal mesh bodysuit and danced between the coils, catching 500kV bolts of lightning modulated to play synth leads instead of thunder.  Craig Newswanger’s robotic drum kit really jams.
• AMODA laptop battle  3-minute sets judged by a panel and audience response in a 3-round elimination format.  I really liked the sounds from Ikipr, Mysterious H, and Cygnus.  Blixaboy won the judges and crowd with a funky approach, then shifted into minimal mode when encore time arrived.  Talking with some of the competitors afterward, it seems like you need to bring enough pieces prepared in advance to take you thru the final round.  One artist admitted to just playing a .wav file after making it thru several rounds.  Its the kind of thing laptop critics will jump on, but in fact it turns out that the audience isn’t oblivious to the difference between merely pressing play and a performance with live elements.
• DataPop 3.0 international chiptune showcase… crowd surfing to nintendo music, who would have thunk.  My man Mysterious H made the front cover of the newspaper
• SURVIVE orchestrated synthadelic slowjams… must see Austin 4-piece
• TENSE EBM from Houston TX…  awesome live show at Awthumfetht V, everybody in the place was up and moving
• Loud Objects … unclassifiable 1-bit noise art circuits assembled live with hot solder.  It was cool seeing Kunal and Tristan in Austin… we’ll see you soon at Bent Festival

Bodytronix (me + erich) played 4 gigs.  Here’s video.  You can hear the SP0256 vocal synthesizer starting at 1:05… The audio is a blend of a board tape (cassette) and the on-camera mic.  Our friends Tommyboy and VidKidz rocked on video projections.

PS I just updated that page with schematics and perfboard layout, in case you have a lonely SP0256-AL2 waiting for a chance to jabber.

The vocal synth will debut at SXSW Interactive on 3/13 when Bodytronix plays Dorkbot at Brush Square Park.  We’re playing a bunch more gigs coming up so maybe we will see you.

• Sat. 3/13 6PM - Dorkbot 23 at SXSW Interactive (RSVP event)… located in Brush Square Park right outside the Austin convention center.
• Tues 3/16 8:30 PM - AWTHUMFETHT 2010 at the Independent (located in 501 Studios)
• Tues 3/16 11:00 PM - Club 1808 (1808 E. 12th St, Austin) w/ Reverse X-Rays, MANY MORE!!
• Sat 3/20 3:00 PM - Handmade Music Austin #6 at Salvage Vanguard Theatre
• April 22-24th (TBA) - Bent Festival ‘10 (The Tank NYC)

I’m working on a new DIY project for folks to build at Handmade Music Austin 6.  Tune In Tokyo started out as an experiment with the 74HC594 chip, and it turned out sounding crazy.  YES, I’m aware of the of nipple reference. XD XD XD

Tune In Tokyo

And finally . . .

Sailormouth, another Texas circuit maestro, interviewed me recently and you can read it here on GetLoFi.com.  Sailormouth’s work covers a good combination of circuit bending, original circuitry, mods, and microcontrollers.  Thanks for the interview my friend.

EDRUPT - My Speakers

The story of EDRUPT is an esoteric mystery of NASA’s Apollo moon missions.  Did you know that the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was the first computer built with integrated circuits a.k.a. chips?  Containing 4,100 chips strung together by hand with wire wrap and solidified inside clear epoxy, the AGC was used in all of NASA’s manned moon missions.  Details of its operation have been disclosed, but one of the computer’s designers included a strange and poorly documented machine instruction called EDRUPT.  It was used only once in the mission, during the phase when the Lunar Module made its descent toward the moon’s surface under digital control.  Retro computing enthusiasts can simulate the AGC’s Luminary 131 software on desktop machines but its found that the system breaks unless EDRUPT is removed from the code.  One understanding of EDRUPT is that it instructed the computer to send data to an unknown destination elsewhere in the spacecraft.  But why is EDRUPT a missing piece of the puzzle?  What was contained in the data it sent?  And… what or who was the intended recipient?

When we played Club 1808 we stripped down the setup to the essentials.  I played BBoT, ABoT, mini space rockers, andromeda Mk-3, modified ibanez DM-1000 looper.  erich played x0xb0x, TX606, clap-raca, casio rapman.

thx for jammin with us: owen, ethan, shane, sweet DJG, lisa, gene, no mas bodas, weird weeds, reverse x rays, club 1808

heres to a very analog 2010.

Handmade Music Austin #3

Sunday, December 20 ‘09

4PM – 5:30 – Beginner’s Workshop
6PM – 8 -Upper Division instrument building class
8:30 – ? Jam and featured performance

Salvage Vanguard Theatre
2803 Manor Road
Austin, Texas 78722

Snare is synthesized with Andromeda Mk-1 damped sine wave + Mk-2 filtered noise burst. The damped sine waves simulate the top head of the snare, and the Mk-2 simulates the bottom drum head and snare wires. The sharp percussion sound is from an experimental all-transistor circuit, on the left. Its triggered by a prototype 2-button loop sequencer using PIC 16F684, code by Wooster Audio.

Its a cluster of four interactive electronic music stations where you can play with Andromeda Space Rockers, the Autonomous Bassline Generator, and MIDI-IR. Each station has 4 space rockers, a mixer, four flexible LEDs from our friends at Bleep Labs, and MIDI-IR to keep everybody in sync.

Here’s video from Handmade Music Austin #2. It was awesome meeting everybody who participated.

HMA3 is coming soon. This time we’ll be building mini space rockers (intro) and Andromeda Mk-4 analog bass drums (advanced).