Need help to format a Bankstick in MB808

Testing/Troubleshooting
1

Could not find my answer doing a search, so I thought I would ask -

How do I format the Bankstick in my MB808. When I FIRST plugged it in, it went though the formatting routine, but some of the chips failed (due to poor solder joint). Now that it’s fixed, I want to RE-Format the Bankstick so that it’s properly initialized. When I start up the MB-808 it simply does a quick check to see if it’s there, but does not format it. I’ve tried re-arranging the chip order. I’ve also tried re-flashing the HEX file for the MB808. But no luck. It will not re-format! I can’t find it as a Utility anywhere in any of the menus. I thought perhaps its a “hold down a button on startup” type thing, but not sure which. Do I need to pull the chips and erase them in an eprom programmer? I hope not, I don’t have one! ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thank you,

Ben

2

MB808 should be very close to MBSEQ v3, in which a “Format” menu exists.

In the manual it says:

BankStick Format Page

Well hidden; only available from the main menu (press EXIT button and rotate the datawheel to the Format entry):

This page provides an oversight over all installed BankSticks and the assignments which are defined in the setup_mbseq_v3.asm file (BankStick size and purpose: Pattern/Mixer/Song storage). By pressing&holding the SELECT button for two seconds, the selected BankStick will be initialized with empty patterns/mixer maps/songs.

Not sure if that helps somewhat?
menu26_01.gif

3

Thank you so much for the help! I appreciate it! Unfortunately, there is no ‘FORMAT’ option off the Menu as there is on the MBSEQ. That’s exactly what I was looking for, similarly thinking that they were so similar. But it’s not there! I even tried flashing the MB808 with the MBSEQ firmware, but the buttons/encoders didn’t respond properly. Anything else I could try?

4

In the setup*. asm file you can see:

BankStick Mode & Allocation Map

; Each BankStick (CS0..CS7) has an own entry

; Set the value to:

; 0: ignore BankStick which could be (or is) connected to the CS address

; 1: if a 32k BankStick (24LC256) is connected and should be used as Pattern Storage (64 patterns)

; 2: if a 64k BankStick (24LC512) is connected and should be used as Pattern Storage (128 patterns)

; 3: if a 32k BankStick is connected and should be used as Song Storage

; 4: if a 64k BankStick is connected and should be used as Song Storage

; NOTE: only one BankStick can be used as Song Storage, only one for Mixer Maps

; If no entry with “mode 3” or “mode 4” is defined, Song mode will be disabled.

; If a BankStick is not connected to the MBSEQ, the appr. entry will have no effect

; If a “MBSEQ Mixer BankStick” is connected, it will be automatically ignored (and not re-formatted)

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS0 2 ; 64k

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS1 2 ; 64k

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS2 2 ; 64k

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS3 4 ; Song mode (using CS3 to ensure compatibility with Atmel EEPROMs which only provide 4 CS addresses)

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS4 2 ; 64k

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS5 2 ; 64k

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS6 2 ; 64k

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS7 2 ; 64k

Are your memory chips are right defined ?

Regards,

Janis

5

Janis, thanks for this snippet of code! After hours of troubleshooting, I discovered a few interesting things -

  1. In the MB808, the first chip in the chain (Chip A=0) on the bankstick will never format since there’s already a 24LC512 on the mainboard residing on the same data backbone and sharing the exact same ‘address’. So, that problem is SOLVED!

  2. My workaround to force a re-format, without there being a menu option for it, was to write ‘FF’ across the whole chip’s memory range eseentially erasing it, using a crude serial programmer I threw together, and PonyProg. Then when reconnected, the MB808 would attempt a re-format.

  3. And this is a real pickle: Chip#4 (or ‘A=3’ as labled on the bankstick schematic pdf) ALWAYS fails on the Format. I have no idea why. It attemps a format, writes some gibberish to the chip and fails. My wiring is sound as I am able to format every other address successfuly. No matter what physical chip I swap it out with, and no matter what method I used to connect it to J4 on the core, that one ID and ONLY that one ID fails each time. Weird. Any ideas??

Thanks!

Ben

6

Hi,

there is a simple reason why a format menu option isn’t available: some people use their MB808 w/o a LCD.

There is no way to warn the user that the BankStick will be formatted if they don’t release a certain button *now*

We also have the situation that sometimes users are trying the firmware w/o knowing if all buttons are working correctly, so that even a special button combination is not safe!

So: I saved you from some trouble.

As a compromise I implemented some SysEx commands to format BankSticks remotely:

;; called with following SysEx command:
;; first BS:
;; F0 00 00 7E 40 00 0D 01 00 60 0C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7
;; second BS:
;; F0 00 00 7E 40 00 0D 01 00 60 0C 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7
;; ...
;; 8th BS:
;; F0 00 00 7E 40 00 0D 01 00 60 0C 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7
;; we use this hook to invalidate the magic bytes of a BankStick to trigger a reformat
;; (BS number, will be available in WREG when function called)
[/code]









Ben: by sending



F0 00 00 7E 40 00 0D 01 00 60 0C 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7



the fourth BankStick should be re-formatted.







If this doesn't really help, it would be interesting which data is read out by your EEPROM programmer exactly.







I expect 0x7a at 0x0000 and 0x5c at 0x0001



All other bytes should be 0







Best Regards, Thorsten.
7

Thorsten,

Thank you SO much for the insights into the MB808 programming and the sysex commands! However, I believe Janis may have figured out my problem - the key was here in the asm file:

#define DEFAULT_BANKSTICK_MODE_CS3 4 ; Song mode (using CS3 to ensure compatibility with Atmel EEPROMs which only provide 4 CS addresses)

When I re-defined it to ‘2’ instead of ‘4’, Chip 4 formatted properly! So perhaps the ‘Song’ format “looks” different than the Pattern mode format on the chip?

I’m going to move the ‘Song’ chip to CS7 and try it from there.

Again, thanks to all of you for helping me out! Thorsten, I love this amazing machine you have helped bring to life. I applaud all your hard work.

Thanks,

Ben