i have been living mostly offline lately and not posting much anywhere, but want to make more of an effort to share underscores updates here and elsewhere in the near future… including creating a thread in this category for each of the products we offer…
right now tho i want to share the release of recurBOY firmware update v3.0.0 - you can find the full release notes and link to download the new image here…
theres also a video walk-through of new features up on videos.scanlines :
besides bug fixes this release also adds:
renaming of existing screens and a new SETTING screen where many things can be configured
support for folder navigation in all content screens
new TEXT OVERLAY mode with live input from usb-keyboards
support for hot-plugging usb-drives / usb-midi-controller / usb-keyboard / usb-capture cards while program is running
I hope this isn’t an annoying question (dangerous start to a sentence ) but is there any chance the text overlay could be ported to recur?
I’ve been eyeing old character generators but they either fetch too high of a price, or have sketchy compatibility. If recur would do it instead, that would be a great alternative. Makes me wonder how hard it would be to find a font to match the late 80s VHS fonts.
but im not actively updating recur at the moment so no plans to add this there. although the backend/code between the two are very similar so it wouldnt be too hard to port it and both codebases are open… (i could be talked into looking into it further if someone wanted to commission the work from me tho…)
i found this font that matched the video titler i used to create trashpalace logo…
and also have another standalone project in the (early) works that could be another alternative
Hi, I’m really looking forward to trying some of these new features.
One thing I can not seem to get working is the live text. I’ve tried 3 different keyboards, but can’t seem to get it working. Text works fine with the example text, but I can not figure out how to get live mode working. I’ve tried following everything in the firmware video exactly, but still no luck. There is just no text to display and it’s not out of frame or anything either. Has anyone else had trouble with this and figured out a solution?
Thanks so much!
which of the micro-usb slots on the back of the pi_zero are you plugging the keyboard into? both will power the pi but only the inner one will read usb devices…
did you try with the keyboard attached before the recurboy is booted up? it should also work plugging it in after it has started if you press the SOURCE button first to trigger opening the keyboard
another thing you could test is - does the keyboard work with the pi_zero when you are not running recurboy ? ie if you stop the program (pressing q not in LIVE mode should quit) can you see what you type in the terminal ? this will help narrow down if its not connecting at all to the pi or only not working within the recurboy program
Thank you so much for these suggestions. It was definitely user error on my part. I now have it working and it’s really fun. Thanks for this great update and for helping me with my user error
I’m thoroughly enjoying the live text feature. I do have one other question though. I notice that after turning on my eurorack case, I have to unplug and plug back in the usb adapter on the module for the keyboard to start working. It’s not ideal because I have to remove the recurboy from my case to do that each time. I’m wondering if there’s a way to get it to recognize the keyboard without having to unplug and plug in. I’ve tried ejecting usb from the menu, but I still seem to have to physically unplug and plug in again for it work.
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks so much!
yes thats definitely not ideal to need to remove it from the case - i have had another similar report about power cycles and needing to replug the usb - so will need to check this out!
do you know if it only happens when using eurorack power and not powered over micro-usb ? if so it could be related to the rpi being powered over gpio from recurboy board. not sure if that is the case but if so maybe a cable that takes 5v from euro header and converts it to micro-usb plug to power pi this way might help.
…as a very quick and dirty solution until something better comes along you might want to consider using a 3D-printed panel with a very short USB-extension-cable so you can access/plug the connection from the front…
…i have made something similar to bring the USB-connection from my Erogenous Tones Structure modules to a cheap USB-hub though…
Thanks fairplay,
Yes I’ve tried that as well. For some reason, even unplugging and plugging into the usb adapter still doesn’t work. For whatever reason, the entire adapter has to be unplugged and replugged from the back of the module itself for it to recognize the keyboard.
Thanks cyberboy666,
I’ve only ever tired it with euro power and it has this issue every time. I’ll give it a try with it powered by micro usb power. So would it power from the outer micro usb port? I assume so.
Thanks, I’ll try and see what happens.
I bought an extra power supply for my case specifically just to power the recurboy. It has 12V / 2A, -12V / 1.2A and +5V / 1.5A. So I don’t think it should be a power issue. But will definitely try powering from micro usb when I get a chance just as an experiment and see if it acts differently.
yes it does - thats the main use case i have found for the external input - iv been using those cheap ezycap cards (similar to this) and find they work well…
i think the cheap hdmi ones work also (probably better if using a rpi_zero2 since hdmi needs more resources)
and then some webcams work fine and others dont just depends how compatible they are with linux kernal
I thought I’d try and have a crack at installing the 3.0 firmware on a spare Pi I had on my desk. So I downloaded the image and burned it to a 16GB SD card with the Raspberry Pi Etcher and after completion was immediately presented with an error message of:
systemd[1]: Failed to load default target: No such file or directory
You are in rescue mode. After logging in, type "journalctl -xb" to view system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, "systemctl default" or ^D to boot into default mode.
Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.
Se sulogin(8) man page for more details.
Press Enter to continue.
So I dug out a keyboard and pressed enter. I saw the recurBoy boot graphic and that stayed up until I hit escape when I was dropped back to the terminal. I presume that’s the openFrameworks app stopping when I do that. A reboot doesn’t fix it and there’s not much in the way of information in the journalctl.
Is there something wrong with the v3.0 firmware?
interesting that you have hit this error - i have occasionally seen the rpi boot into safe mode where enter is required to boot but usually this shouldnt happen.
i just flashed and booted around 10x recurboys today with new firmware and it def is working. in one case it was hanging at the initial colour gradient and i just reflashed the image onto sd and it worked after this…
in your case i would first try reflashing the new image onto your sd card and trying it again. its also worth knowing that on the first boot from a new flash the recurboy will load up followed shortly by an auto reset as the image is being resized. after the second boot (which may take a bit longer than usual) you should be good to go.
let me know if this issue for you persists after a reflash - then it could be an issue with the rpi or sd card possibly
i just tried to reproduce this but didnt have any luck. i tried both the rpi_zero1 and rpi_zero2 powering from both micro-usb on back and from eurorack header soldered onto the recurboy - in both cases the attached keyboard (that was plugged in already) worked on boot…
im happy to take a look into it further if we can figure out how to reproduce… maybe if you try isolate it from the eurorack case and see if you are still seeing this ?
) but is there any chance the text overlay could be ported to recur?
