Dear folks,
we all know that it is not possible to play fool on the hill with the radio interferences, nor the altair has a sound chip, not to talk of sampling possibilities.
BUT, computers have been used as controllers, and score editors since the days of the PDP.
while I'm here waiting for my 8800 clone to be shipped, I had an idea and I wonder if any of you would be interested in helping me out with some code to create something new with our beloved altair.
I work as a sound designer and professional musician and I have more than a decade of experience in MaxMSP language,
yesterday I was thinking about the I/O for the terminal emulator and I had one of those Eureka! moments..
I figured out that it may be possible to get some data out of the altair into a MaxMSP patch (as well as Pure Data and Processing) by connecting the serial output of the altair (pin 3 and 7 I guess) to an arduino board, which has digital and analog inputs.
Let's imagine for a second that we could program a simple basic software that outputs some alphanumeric at a given time.
If I find a way to get those bytes into arduino, I think I can translate them into music controls into MaxMSP.
I'm not very experienced in electronics, but I guess that that this is possible.
So to start off I'd like to ask to Mike what is the output voltage of the serial port (pin 3, grounding with pin 7?)...
arduino inputs works within 6-12V. Also I need to figure out if the digital input of arduino could work.. arduino anyone here?
If this connection is possible then I could write a software in Max to use that data to make music. I can develop this for mac and pc, later maybe for linux with pure data.
I would need some help to write a software in basic (or anything else the 8800 can use), starting from a simple sequence of letters with some timing feature... like a sequences of "A" every x milliseconds. to start off. later random numbers could be implemented to create some sort of generative sequencing.
I think that basic could be the choice (i have my C64 experience of my youth, but I hardly can say that i really know the full potentials of basic).
If all this work, I would love to share the patch and instructions to transform your 8800 into a music sequencer.
Anybody interested?