when the 256 start taking the orders...heheh I cant wait here in
germany...

we're hoping to ship mid-august.

we'll probably take pre-orders just before then.

*marks his calendar*

oh nice can't wait ...but are you guys will be making 256 limited as 
well like the 40th?

yes, but not in the same way. we'll make them in batches of 100, given 
there appears to be sufficient demand to sell most of the batch. in the 
end i don't think we'll make very many batches.

any idea on price ? looks lovely .

matt

i think it will be around 1000-1500?

tehn has clearly noted that the 256 will DEFINITELY be more than $1000. 
he has never confirmed how much but made a point it will be more than 
$1k, while maintaining that they were working hard to keep the cost as 
low they feasibly can.

i'm only speculating but i think $1200-$1400 is probably what we're 
looking at...guess work only.

when is the pre order start for 256?

we're hoping for mid-august pre-order, early september shipping. i'm 
hoping that's not too optimistic.

Pre-order still looking good for 2 weeks time?

i'm pretty sure we'll be on schedule. a lot depends on lead times for 
getting the circuit boards, and there's a backorder on the leds we're 
using.

we don't want to take pre-orders more than four weeks before shipping, 
so yes, let's hope for two weeks from now.

pretty soon we'll have some video and new photos of the 256 in action. 
we're quite excited with how it's coming together.

Bring on the media! I'm definitely going to be ordering one. I've 
already sold a significant amount of my gear for it. Tears for future 
joy.

Is the pricepoint more definite yet?

Hi there. I'm new here. Any news on whether the 128 and 256 are going to 
feature the tilt control?

we're not planning on it. it doesn't make a lot of sense for such large 
units, as they're not hand-held at all.

arg! teh suspense is killin' me!

:-) (-:

tehn, you da man . . . really, you are.


The 40h has finally allowed me to play out in front of audiences...thank 
you oh so dearly. I can't wait for the 256, it'll allow me so much more 
control!

Starting to get twitchy over the release of the 256. Do you know how 
many will be available in the first pre-order? The 40h's popularity 
seems to have grown so much, will there be enough units for everyone who 
wants one?

initial release of the 256 will be 100 units. we do not believe they 
will sell out immediately.

(tentatively) initial releases of the 128 and 64 will follow with 
batches of 200 units each.

mid-week we'll have a more reasonable assessment of our release schedule 
(based on manufacturers' progress) and we'll post real prices and 
release dates.

we'll be taking pre-orders two weeks before we ship.

we'll hopefully have some video and photos very soon. we've done a lot 
of reworking since the fake makerfaire proto.

no way, that prototype was great. i stared at it for like two minutes 
even though it didn't do anything :D

::tosses and turns with cold sweats::

You meant the middle of this week, not the last one right? ;)

sorry for the delays on posting solid information. it's been very busy 
and incredibly complicated the last weeks.

we've been partially waiting until we have some good photos before 
posting up dates and prices. more importantly we've been waiting to hear 
back from manufacturers about lead times.

needless to say, we haven't announced pre-orders, so our long-time-ago 
estimate of late august is obviously off. we're compiling dates and 
arrival times for parts and our estimate is early october.

we see no reason to worry about obtaining a 256 (as if we'd sell all 100 
instantly), and we plan on opening pre-orders two weeks before shipping, 
as stated before.

the good news is that the 128 and 64 will follow the 256 more quickly 
than we first thought.

one more review of the numbers tomorrow, then we'll post pricing.

we still have kits available, and we're looking forward to seeing more 
people finish up their designs.

also i've been designing some new patches that i'll polish up for public 
release.

thanks for your patience!

Counting the hours now and my P3 is on ebay.

Can you tell me how many adc ports will be available on the 256 and will 
they be easily accessible without damaging that lovely wooden enclosure?

there are no ADC ports on the 256/128. there is however a full digital 
8bit port available (8 digi i/o pins). we've done no additional 
development with the expansion port, but will consider it in the future.

expansion ideas--

bank of encoders
bank of extra switches
extra light indication
breakout circuit with analog multiplexer and ADC, taking in multiple 
inputs

best: communicate with another microcontroller doing something more 
complicated.


the reasons for the no-ADC design are various-- ADC pins shared with 
JTAG, having only 4 aux ports seemed under-featured, but at the same 
time very few people have modded their 40h. part of that hesitation is 
chopping up the case. i see this being an issue on the new series as 
well.

i also didn't have time to spend on the code and timing tests.

the kits on the other hand are great for ADC use-- they're already 
opened up, etc.

however, the extra ports on the 40h were never meant to be a replacement 
for a solidly engineered knob box.


so what it comes down to is there won't be any auxiliary function right 
out of the box. it'll be a community effort to define what's interesting 
to people and then possibly develop some breakout board (plys firmware 
update) revisions, which will also engage the options for potentially 
damaging the enclosure, etc.

i've often thought of designing a modular control system, which is where 
this effort would be better invested. though midibox does a great job at 
that already.

The 8bit port sounds interesting. Probably a bit too much of a task for 
myself but I wonder if the some of the programmers at midibox could put 
together some kind of midibox-monome combo enclosure. If the digi port 
you speak of has output aswell, does that mean the every button press 
from 256 is output here? That could be easily integrated into the 
midibox program. It is modular, isn't it?

the port is input or output. you'd need to program the firmware to tell 
the chip what to do. currently it does nothing. you could certainly 
send/receive led/key data, but that's pretty redundant. best interface 
with some other electronics.