Music technologist Jordt Bartolome has constructed a device to significantly develop the usability of Casio keyboards from the ’80s and ’90s, standing in for the now hard-to-find official ROM PACK equipment: the drivePACK.

“ROM PACK cartridges are a sort of reminiscence cartridges utilized by some Casio music keyboards from the 80s and early 90s,” Bartolome explains. “These cartridges comprise melody packages that may be performed on CASIO ROM PACK suitable music keyboards (they’ve a particular slot for them often within the prime proper nook). A single cartridge might comprise a number of melodies, which the person can choose by urgent one of many piano keys to play or follow them in numerous methods on the keyboard, relying on whether or not the ‘auto play,’ or ‘melody information’ mode is chosen.”

Whereas Casio ROM PACKs had been as soon as a standard sight in music shops all through the world, they’re now scarce — which is the place the drivePACK is available in. “With the drivePACK,” Bartolome explains, “it is possible for you to to play in your CASIO keyboards with ROM PACK assist all of the ROM PACK cartridges that ever existed.”

The drivePACK is a two-part machine, linked by a ribbon cable. The primary half is the stand-in for a ROM PACK cartridge, designed to slip into the keyboard’s ROM PACK enlargement slot; the second is a management panel that lets the person choose from ROM PACK photographs, in DRP and BIN codecs, saved on a SD card. The machine can even dump actual ROM PACK cartridges to photographs, obtain ROM PACK knowledge from a pc over USB, and even comes with editor software program to create new ROM PACK photographs, its creator says.

“The firmware of the drivePACK has been developed in C and Arm meeting language utilizing [the] Microchip Studio surroundings and the Atmel-ICE programmer,” Bartolome says of the machine’s creation. “C has been utilized in most a part of the code, and Arm meeting solely within the components that require exact timings and high-speed response to grant the utmost efficiency and minimal latencies.

“This is applicable to routines that emulate the cartridge and require quick learn and write operations on the info/addresses bus. This might have been ideally finished with a CPLD [Complex Programmable Logic Device] or small FPGA [Field-Programmable Gate Array] however it could have elevated the complexity and value of the PCB.”

The drivePACK is now obtainable on Bartolome’s Tindie retailer for $140; extra data may be discovered on the maker’s web site.