Nerdy Texts of Analog and Embedded Systems Wizardry

So lately I’ve gotten called back into the top-secret toy-prototype world a lot and have not gotten as much research done for Narrat1ve as I might have hoped to.

However, I have tweaked my new video synth about as far as it can go with the current hardware, and got a chance to show it off at the Midwest Experimental Electronics Showcase last Saturday (that link will probably not be about MEES forever).
It looks considerably more badass than it did when I last showed it in New York, although it is still far from ideal. I’ve gotten a lot of what I’ll call “trippiness in the Horizontal range” and now know how and why all of that happens, how color encoding works, how interlacing and sync work, and what audio looks like coded directly into RGB color information. In general I feel pretty confident about the essentially obsolete technology of analog video :-)
I’m excited about plowing through the next revision as soon as I get some time. It should be a lot more badass, and include some frequency multiplication, waveshaping, and the ability to incorporate external video.

I also met some nice folks named Arturo and Sarah whose company likely knows a whole lot more about said osolete video than me, and it turned out that Arturo used to work on the Sandin IP which was among the first artsy fartsy video synths ever made (along with Stephen Beck and Nam June Paik’s stuff) right here in Chicago! Historical Context W00t!

In WTPA news, shipping shipping shipping. The videos and pics from people who’ve successfully built the thing are starting to come in, and I should get them up soon.

EDIT:

Tue May 19 20:32:31 CDT 2009

Whoa. I just found this Linear Technology App Note which is blowing my mind. Any of you interested in analog video should cop that *ish.

Xo, TB

So I’ve been bringing the word to the street pretty hard lately. I just rolled back from a really great talk at Machine Project in LA (see above), and the last two weekends before that I’ve been in New York pimping some kind of technology.
Landing in Chicago it turns out that both CDM and Hackaday were cool enough to talk about WTPA (thanks!) and suddenly I’m (even more) behind in shipping.
Since I got back I’ve updated the shopping cart so it’s now possible to order WTPA from outside the USA, I’ve updated the Assembly Manual to account for some FAQs, and I’ve written the Operator’s Manual which includes how to rock out, MIDI implementation, and general arcana.

In general, selling kits is fun, but it sure does take time. I can’t wait until I’ve got all this logistical mess under control and can go back to working on my new video synth. I’ve learned a lot about tape guns this week; less about back porches.