Jim, Yes - good point regarding the human factors stuff.
Excellent suggestion doing a MIDI / CAT interface. I've done some PIC serial interface work, and this might be a good excuse to do some more development. I've got a MIDI controller with a bunch of slide pots and a knob that is just collecting dust. Mark W8XR ------- Original Message ------- >From : Jim Lux[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent : 6/25/2007 1:42:56 PM To : [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; flexradio@flex-radio.biz Cc : Subject : RE: Re: [Flexradio] key pad knob like this one At 07:23 AM 6/25/2007, Tim Ellison wrote: >No Mark. Fortunately you were very lucid at the time :-) > >The FLEX-5000 uses the MIDI control protocol to manipulate hardware >controls in the radio. The "hooks" part of the code is not exposed >fully yet, so there isn't an easy way to do this now. I could see where >someone could create a FlexWire device that would allow one to create a >external interface to possibly control the hardware in order to make a >widget with knobs, but since the FlexWire specifications are not yet >published, this is only conjuncture on my part. > >-Tim Indeed.. publishing the interface would be a good step. In the mean time, one could theoretically build a MIDI to CAT translator. I've been looking at various and sundry MIDI Control Surfaces (Behringer has a nice one, but I won't buy Behringer gear because of their FCC troubles) for this kind of thing. The problem with the control surfaces is that they are a bit too audio recording/performance oriented (although... what about a multiple stomp box for handsfree band changes?). I also think that you really want the display tied to the controls: not in the horrible Automatic Teller "softkeys" way, but there's something nice about having a tuning knob with the frequency display above or next to it. For devices with good interplay between knobs buttons and displays, take a look at the new oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers from Agilent and Tek. Knobs for the features you commonly use (horizontal speed, vertical), softkeys for a couple functions at most, and then, for complex setup stuff, a touch screen or mouse interface. Some of these devices are a bit clunky, but overall, since these are high dollar items being used by people for whom time is a lot of money, they've spent quite a bit of human factors research time on them. Just little subtle things like the color of the knobs for the vertical channel matching the color of the trace on the screen, for instance. If the "universal ham controller/display" had the right rig control interface possibilities (and, it's not clear that all rigs have sufficient controllability, but most of the newer ones do), I suspect that if you could get some people together, one could design a very nice universal controller. You'd need someone who really understands all that human factors stuff, an industrial designer, and then someone like HRD Simon HB9DRV to implement the backend controls. Jim W6RMK _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
