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Hi Yann,
The K2000 went through considerable upgrade and improvement from V1 to V2 and V3 software. Thie V3
design was carried on as the starting point for the K2500, K2600 and later models. As you only came to to get
your K2000 in 1998 you missed all that.
The big problem with the K2000 is that the CPU is underpowered for the features in V3. Try multi tracking on
the internal sequencer with a lot of voices playing and you will see what I mean. The K2500 CPU is twice as fast
and does a much better job of handling the load even though it has to generate twice the polyphony.
I don't think Kurzweil have made any of their K series source code or internal design documents available other
than the service manuals. You could always try hacking and reverse engineering the EPROM data as I gather
the K2000 CPU is a 68000 and there are a lot of tools around for it. Be aware also that the DSP for the
synthesis algorithms is done in the custom Kurzweil chips and you may not be able to change that by modifying
the main CPU code.
/Tristan
On Wed, Feb 13th, 2019 at 8:38 PM, "[email protected] [KurzList]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello to everybody,
>
>
> I am new on this list, although I have been reading it now and then - so let
> me present myself quickly.
>
>
> I have bought a used K2000 around 1998, and equipped it straight away with
> an internal hard drive and sample RAM. I stopped using it in July 1999, one
> reason being the frustration with the limitations of the system in ROM,
> particularly the inability to edit the ROM samples; and also the trouble of
> having to load the samples into RAM at each startup, despite the impression
> that programs are there and ready to run, since they are properly displayed
> in the banks in Program mode. There were other personal reasons which led me
> to abandon music completely at the same time, but I gave up on the K2000
> before I gave up on music.
>
>
> Now two years ago, I got interested in making music again, and took my K2000
> from my cellar. After some revision, it is in great shape, except for an
> issue with the volume slider.
>
>
> I am a beginner in digital electronics; but since my background is a good
> familiarity with computers, I am getting interested with updating the system
> software ("ROM", actually it sits in EPROM chips). I would like to know
> whether there is some interest in this list in the following tasks and
> objectives:
> * understanding the working of the boards, especially the engine board;
> * understanding the system software;
> * improving the performance of the overall system, especially through
> software only updates (that is, releasing new EPROMs contents for the engine
> ROMs);
> * backporting improvements that later K2500 software revisions include;
> * and why not, improve on the sound generation possibilities, according to
> the user community interests?
>
>
> One of my main goals would be to improve overall performance, especially
> SCSI read times, and memory handling code.
>
>
> Of course, it would be worthwhile first to ask courteously people at Young
> Chang whether they want to do such themselves; and if not, how they may help,
> perhaps by releasing information like schematics, development documents, code
> source, or whatever information would help getting forward with the project.
>
>
> I am not too optimistic with this step, expecting that nothing would come
> out of it - but I would love to be proven wrong on that count!
>
>
> It feels to me that despite YC's discourse that "they always improve their
> product", which you can see prominently displayed with each K2500 ROM
> updates, they gave up on the K2000 quite early, in favor of k2500 development
> and sales. It seems to me - but I would need to double check - that K2000 and
> K2500 hardware is not much different; and that this decision is mainly an
> economic (human resources) and marketing (sales of the new line of products)
> one, not a purely technical one.
>
>
> But I believe a community of K2000 users and aficionados is still alive and
> well; and I hope they wouldn't mind dreaming, asking for, and perhaps help
> manifest a new life to K2000 software development and enhancement.
>
>
> I would like to know your feelings about this; and whether anybody would
> like to embark on this wonderful journey of exploration and realizations.
>
>
> Thank you for reading!
>
>
> Yann
>
------------------------------------
Posted by: Tristan <[email protected]>
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