Analogue-sequencer

> I *just* joined this mailing list a day or two ago, so that I 
> could learn
> more about the P3. I am particularly interested in the kits, so the
> announcement of their discontinuation has me slightly 
> disconcerted. :-)

It's a feeling you may get used to if you're doing much electronic work.
I've just found my usual supplier doesn't even carry 16 pin DIP sockets any
longer...

> Question 1: do the kits come with schematics?

Schematics are available from the Sequentix site.
Come to think of it, they might not be quite up to date, so I'll make a note
to check.
But schematics are freely available.
 
> Question 2: is the software "open source"?
 
No, the source is not available.

> Question 3, for builders of kits in the United States: what 
> is the total
> parts cost, more or less? I realize this varies with choices 
> of panels,
> pots, knobs, etc.; I'm just looking for a ballpark estimate 
> (as we say in
> this country).

I leave that one hopefully for a recent US builder with his credit card
statement handy...

> Question 4: I personally would prefer endless rotary encoders 
> rather than
> potentiometers. I see that there has been some discussion of 
> this in the
> past. What is the feasibility for a kit builder to convert 
> their unit to
> encoders? I can do some amount of digital circuit design, can 
> lay out my own
> PCBs, write microcontroller firmware, etc. (To some extent 
> this hinges on
> the answers to questions 1 and 2.)

The current pot scanning hardware has a latch to select which pot is to be
read, a line to strobe the analogue to digital convertor to start
conversion, and another to read the value.
It would be possible to use a PIC microcontroller in place of the A to D
convertor circuit to emulate pots using rotary encoders.
This would need some software support to provide the encoder processor with
the current positions of the pots it's going to emulate, but that could be
done by writing the current 'position' value to the A to D convertor address
when starting each 'conversion' - this address is not used in the existing
hardware, so a write to it would have no effect.
This is not a project I have time to deal with myself, but I'd be happy to
advise on it for anyone desperate for encoders...

Best regards,
Colin Fraser
Sequentix Music Systems Ltd
http://www.sequentix.com