|
Organbuilding Art is quite different from other electronic system designs, whose longevity is not guaranted nor studied. More, programmed obsolescence is
inherently and deliberately inserted in many electronic parts for large public products, car design and so on.
Since more than 30 years, I have been building organs with very long time life duration.Also, electronic suppliers are often changing their hardware parts, and much often their operating systems. Organbuilders are particularly sensible to parts longevity. |
FIRST IDEA : STANDARD, LONG LIFE DURATION First, I am using very popular integrated
circuits, such as buffers and gates, which are always present in
supplier catalogs since more than 30 years.
And there is no reason why such parts would be canceled, without beeing replaced. |
NO MICROPROCESSOR : Second, electronic parts are quite simple, without any microprocessor. (except my 7 keyboard KI7_MIDI_USB or KI6x8x8_MIDI_USB interface, of course, which can replace a PC). This microprocessor is more reliable than any PC. But one can order my 7 keyboard inputs, with 8 bits parallel output, which has no microprocessor in case of PC use. Output boards have all parallel design. No microprocessor Moreover, I guarantee less than 4ms delay, even if many keys are hit simultaneously. |
STANDARD, CENTRALIZED PC BOARDS : One can reasonnably hope that the "PC concept", and particularly the embedded boards will have a very long life duration. Even military people are using embedded boards ! m All my complex software is summarized in PC or microprocessor.
Written in C++, it's a good guarantee for a very long life time. Even if parallel port is officially obsolete, many PC board makers provide such interfaee. And it can be replaced easily by USB to parallel interfaces. Moreover, add-on boards providing parallel interface are always available on standard PC's. |
TO CONCLUDE : My
design is completely independant from slow MIDI standards for inside my
system. But I have of course MIDI input and output capabilitues.
But the core of my system is based on fast 8 bits parallel bus. 4mS delay max guaranted ! |