Gilderfluke&Co DMX-512, Serial, and MIDI Output Smart Bricks - Manual (Page 13)

Animation Data Eproms:
The Eproms used for all all of the 'Brick' products manufactured by Gilderfluke & Company have tradi-
tionally each contained one channel (eight bits) worth of data. The Eproms used on the BS-DMX-Tx or BS-
Serial Smart Bricks, BS-ANA, EFB Smart Brick and RTU/FSK Units for storing animation data each carry a num-
ber of channel's worth of data. The first four bytes also contain the frame rate, number of channels and
the length of the first show in the Eprom.
These are generated on a PC¥MACs system by:
1) Selecting the 'Save as Eprom...' command from the 'File' pulldown.
2) Check on the 'Multi Channel' checkbox
3) Set the 'start' and 'end' boxes to set the number channels you want to go into this multiple
Eprom file. A BS-DMX-Tx or BS-Serial Smart Bricks can hold anywhere from one to all 255 chan-
nels. Be sure to allow for enough extra channels for any Z-Bricks that might be attached to the
BS-DMX-Tx or BS-Serial Smart Bricks. When creating Eproms for a BS-DMX-Tx, the ÔstartÕ is usually
set to Ф00Х. When preparing Eproms for a BS-Serial, the ÔstartÕ can be set to any value. The ÔFirst
Address in EpromÕ value is set to equal the ÔstartÕ value that is used when creating the Eprom
files.
4) Use the ÔAddÕ button to select any additional show you would like to be saved into this Eprom
file set.
5) Use the ÔPromoteÕ and ÔDemoteÕ buttons to move selected show(s) into the order you would like
to save them in the Eprom.
6) Normally you will want to select the ÔCalculate Brick Start FramesÕ checkbox to allow PC¥MACs
to automatically calculate the offset into the Eproms needed for the shows you are saving. If
you would like to preserve the ÔStart frameÕ values in the show files, also check the ÔSave Brick
StartsÕ checkbox.
7) If you are not using the PC¥MACs calculated ÔBrick StartsÕ, you will have had to set these indi-
vidually for each show under its File/Show Information dialog. If they are set improperly,
PC¥MACs will tell you if any of the shows are overlapping during the build. When using ÔBrick
StartsÕ that you have entered, PC¥MACs can pad the space between the shows with the de-
fault values for the movements if you have checked the ÔPad With Default ValuesÕ checkbox.
8) Press the ÔBuildÕ button to begin the saving process. A standard file save dialog will open.
Name the file as desired. (it defaults to the name of the first show in the list). PC¥MACs will
warn you if a file already exists with this name. Hit OK to save the data to a file.
Once the shows have been saved to the multiple show file, you can burn them into Eprom(s) using
any Eprom programmer that supports 27C010 through 27C080 Eproms. The BS-DMX-Tx or BS-Serial Smart
Bricks each hold a single 27C010, 27C020 or 27C040. If using 27C080 Eproms, you can use up to eight
of these chips on each BS-DMX-Tx or BS-Serial Smart Brick. If more than eight 27C080s are needed, then a
memory expansion card can add the capacity for a total of up to fifteen 27C080 Eproms or a single PCM-
CIA flash card.
If you press the ÔReportÕ button, PC¥MACs will display the information about the Eprom set you just
saved. This information is also saved in a text file with the same name as the Eproms, but with the exten-
sion of Ô.setÕ. You can open this file with any text editor like Notepad or Wordpad. The numbers shown for
ÔBrick startÕ and ÔBrick endÕ are what you need to enter into the Smart Brick Brain to set the start and end of
each show. The ÔEprom startÕ and ÔEprom endÕ are the actual locations of the shows in the Eprom set. The
number shown for the ÔEprom EndÕ for the last show in this file set is the last byte which will be saved into
the Eprom. If your Eprom is smaller than this number, you will need to use more than a single Eprom. The
capacities of all of the large Eproms are as follows:
G ILDERFLUKE & C O .¥ 205 S. F LOWER S T . ¥ B URBANK , CA 91502 ¥ 818/840-9484 ¥ 800/776-5972 ¥ FAX 818/840-9485
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