major software update to v3.0.0 !

find the link to the image download (v3.0.0s) here (1.8gb file)

to run the new firmware you can download the image file, insert an sd card (with 8gb or more) into the computer and use a program like etcher or raspberry pi imager to flash it to the card, then put back in raspberry pi

this is the first software update to the recurboy firmware in some time. it includes a mix of new ideas, features/bug fixes i have wanted to add since the beginning and a number of requests raised in the issue tracker by users.

a video demo of this firmware update can be found here

new internal naming of screens plus new SETTING screen

i have renamed the screens accessible in recuBOY to be clearer and more inline with other projects going forward. this naming also applies to the folders used on usb-drive to put custom content in.

• Sampler is now VIDEO
• Shaders is now PATTERN
• Camera is now EXTERNAL
• Fx is now EFFECT

additionally the button pressed to cycle between the initial source was labelled MODE but is now SOURCE

the layout of the screens can be seen in the above diagram. where pressing the SOURCE button cycles bewteen VIDEO -> PATTERN -> EXTERNAL and the LEFT and RIGHT buttons move between SOURCE screen and EFFECT screen.

you can also see the addition of a new screen SETTINGS which sits to the left of SOURCE screen. more details about the content of this screen below

new major feature - text overlay mode as mentioned in issue #35

• this feature is off by default but can be enabled in the SETTINGS screen under TEXT_ENABLE
• enabling it allows access to two more screens to the RIGHT of EFFECT - TEXT and FONT as seen in the diagram below:

TEXT screen

• from the TEXT screen user can select from a list of .txt files that are overlaid onto the current recurBOY output.
• the 4x analog inputs (pots and cv jacks) while on this screen map to the text x position , y position , width and height
• in addition to displaying .txt files there is also the option to enter LIVE mode - where text from a usb keyboard can be entered and displayed in real time.
• besides entering letters, numbers and characters from the keyboard, a few other commands are possible here including:
  • holding SHIFT or toggling CAPSLOCK to shift to uppercase characters
  • ENTER key to start new line
  • BACKSPACE key to delete last char
  • ESC key to exit live/text mode
  • F1 key to save current text to .txt file

FONT screen

• FONT screen can be entered by moving to the right of TEXT screen
• from here a list of .ttf and .otf fonts can be selected to apply to the text
• the 4x analog inputs (pots and cv jacks) while on this screen map to the text hue saturation, brightness and transparency

pressing the FX button from either TEXT or FONT screens toggle the text effect on and off (compared to the shader effect that is toggled from any other screen)

new feature: folder navigation as mentioned in issue #17

now from any screen that selects files on the os ( VIDEOS, PATTERNS, EFFECTS, TEXT and FONT) these files can be organized in folders.

• a folder is represented in the screen with a horizontal line at end of name - eg folder_name|
• when selected the insides of this folder is shown below the current folder name ending in a carrat - eg folder_name^ - this can be selected to move up out of the current folder

new feature: allowing hot plugging of usb devices

there are now a number of different uses for the single USB-A plug (at end of included OTG micro-usb to usb-a socket cable):

• usb-drive to add custom content
• usb-keyboard to enter LIVE TEXT
• usb-midi to control recurboy over midi
• usb-capture to process external video signals

previously these usb peripheries needed to be attached before booting the recurBOY but now they can be swapped out while the program is running.

• usb-drive needs to be safely removed before unplugging by selecting EJECT_USB in the SETTING menu
• usb-capture should be stopped before removing by selecting STOP in the EXTERNAL menu
• when any new usb device is plugged in the SOURCE button needs to be pressed to detect it before use

a number of new features contained in the new SETTING menu - as in issue #36

VIDEO_MODE

displays whether the recurBOY is outputing video over composite (cvbs) or hdmi. this does not set the output. this is set by whether an hdmi cable is attached during boot. if not it will default to cvbs

CVBS_TYPE (issue #28 )

this sets whether recurBOY when booting into CVBS should use PAL or NTSC format. NOTE toggling this sets the preference but a reboot is required for it to be active

HDMI_TYPE

this sets whether recurBOY when booting into HDMI should use 480P or 720P format. NOTE toggling this sets the preference but a reboot is required for it to be active. also note that some functions could result in lagging when using the 720P format

CV_UPPER

this sets whether the cv inputs respond to the full range between 0-5V or can be set to respond to 0-1V range (internally scaled at lower resolution)

TEXT_ENABLE

enables the TEXT overlay feature mentioned above

CV_BUTTON (issue #37 )

a special mode where the cv inputs act as triggers for recurBOY buttons:

• play/pause
• fx on/off
• scroll down ? (scroll wrap around also implemented)
• select

IMAGE_RATIO ( issue #34 )

select whether images are stretched across screen or displayed in original ratio with letterboxing

SHOW_FPS

toggles frames per second display on output - can be useful to determining if running smooth enough at 720P for example

ADC_GRAIN

determines how granular the analog to digital converter reads analog inputs. lower is more resolution but can result in some jittering if power supply is too noisy

PIXEL_OFFSET ( issue #29 )

some batches of the tft displays used for recurboy have a row and column of dead pixels on edge of screen. turning this on should fix this issue for those devices

EJECT_USB

for safely removing usb-drives as mentioned in hotplugging feature above

COPY_CONTENT

this triggers a script that will copy all the recurboy content (ie in folders on top level named VIDEO , PATTERN , etc) from an external usb-drive to the internal file storage. can be a useful way to transfer your files onto the recurboy without needing to ssh

SHUTDOWN

select this to safely shutdown the recurboy before unplugging. this is the same as holding down the play/pause button used before

FIRMWARE

displays the current firmware running

bug fixes

a number of other small quality of life / bug fixes were also included in this update. not all of them are listed here but some notable ones are:

large lists of files not showing on the display ( issue #3 )

there was a problem with large lists of content displaying correctly (due to max size of a single OSC message used internally) which is now resolved

small hardware update:

in addition to this large software update a minor release to the hardware v1_1_0h was added:

• adding c1 - a 0.1uf power capacitor to the mcp3008 adc ic
• this is standard practice for regulating power to ics and must have been missed since this circuit was designed many years ago before i learnt about it.
• this should result in more stable adc readings which could in turn allow for the ADC_GRAIN mentioned above to be set slightly lower