Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

I forgot to add, my usb midi cable does flash when sending the firmware, and the "in" light flashes green as if it is receiving but the unit still does nothing.

Thanks..

"noOS" means that the firmware in ROM fails the bootloader's checksum test.

Typically this occurs upon restarting the BCR after an incomplete upgrade operation: some parts of the firmware have been renewed, others haven't, causing the checksum failure.

The only way to remedy this is to upload the new firmware completely via a cable connected to the BCR's MIDI IN port (the BCR's USB port doesn't work).

(Incidentally: just try the 1.10 firmware; it's no use at all trying 1.07: if you can't get 1.10 to work, the problem lies in the procedure, not in 1.10 itself.)

If you use BC Manager's bi-directional firmware upload method (from the B-Controls window: MIDI -> Maintenance -> Send firmware), you must also connect a cable back to the computer from the BCR's MIDI OUT A.

However, if you use a one-directional SysEx uploader, it may be best to REMOVE the cable from the BCR's MIDI OUT A; the uploader might actually get confused by the acknowledgement messages returned by the BCR during the firmware upload. (In fact, this might be the reason you've ended up with noOS in the first place, particularly if the BCR's Operating Mode was S-1 or S-2.)

Hi again,

thanks for the advice Mark. Still getting no where with the machine.

I have tried sending it in midiox. The midi out light flashes and the in light flashes on the bcr.

I have tried 2 methods with bcmanger, firstly it wont recognise the machine when it refreshes and also when it tries to recieve the firmware.

I then tried "undirectioal" route where you load the sysex and execute play. The lights flash on the cable and the machine however nothing happens.

I have also tried using sysex loader and that hasn't worked.

It seems that I am able to send to the bcr and it's light flashes as if it is taking in the information yet when I power it on "noOS" always appears. I have also tried these methods with just the midi out/bcr in and both input and outputs connected. I have also tried sending with "noOS" on display and the bootlegger mode.

Is it possible my flash chip is corrupted and the bcr is "bricked" ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I feel like I'm going mad with all the time I'm spending on it..

Thanks,

Paul

Or could it be my midi cable. It is a $5 usb to midi in/out cable. Do I need a proper interface?

Thanks,

Paul

> Is it possible my flash chip is corrupted and the bcr is "bricked" ?

Very unlikely.
The bootloader code (responsible for "noOS" on the display) is loaded from the EEPROM chip into RAM on startup, so your EEPROM, RAM and CPU seem to be working fine.
The only hardware part on the BCR that MIGHT be broken is the MIDI input circuit, but that seems unlikely as well, since you're describing seeing its light flash.
So I think your BCR's hardware is in good shape.
Ironically, the fact that you managed to partially overwrite your old 1.04 firmware with 1.10 indicates that everything was working fine then, and I can't imagine that your BCR's hardware has suddenly got broken since then: a MIDI transmission problem seems much more likely.

Some tips:

If you're using BC Manager's "MIDI System Exclusive messages" window to upload the firmware unidirectionally, you may have to set "Delay/message (ms)" to something like 100. (This might help to prevent the USB-to-MIDI device from skipping parts of the messages.)
Oh, and "of course" you have to select (highlight) ALL the firmware messages before you press "Play".

By the way: are you sure you're sending the right firmware data?
The BCR's 1.10 firmware consists of 256 SysEx messages, each 304 bytes long (as you can see in the "MIDI System Exclusive messages" window).

While you're uploading the firmware (unidirectionally or bidirectionally, from any utility), the BCR's display confirms the correct reception of each block of 16 messages by displaying the block's internal address area, from 2 to 17. So an upload is successful if (and only if) the end result is "17" on the display: then you can switch the BCR off and on again, upon which you should see the version of the uploaded firmware, i.e. "1.10".

> I have tried 2 methods with bcmanger, firstly it wont recogni se the
> machine when it refreshes and also when it tries to recieve the firmware.

Try this:
1. Connect your USB-to-MIDI device to the Windows computer and connect the BCR bidirectionally (i.e. via MIDI IN and MIDI OUT A) to the USB-to-MIDI device.
2. Start the computer and the BCR.
3. Start BC Manager.
4. From BC Manager's main window, select Options -> MIDI devices. On the Input and Output tabs, tick the checkboxes for the MIDI in and out ports of the USB-to-MIDI device (it might help to untick any other devices), and press OK.
5. From the main window, open the "B-Controls" window, and run MIDI -> Detect B-Controls. You should then see a row in the table with "BCR2000" in the Model column, Personality = "Bootloader" and Firmware = "BCR2000 BOOTLOADER 1.0".
If this is the case, you should then be able to run MIDI -> Maintenance -> Send firmware successfully.
However, if you do NOT see the row as described above, there is something wrong in the bidirectional path, and you might try the tests below to figure out what's wrong:

To test the path TO the BCR:
From BC Manager's main window, open View -> MIDI -> System messages.
Make sure the USB-to-MIDI device is selected after "Device".
Then press Tune Request -> Start and watch the BCR for a while: its input light should flash once per second. (Finally press Stop, of course.)
If it does, you may try sending a test SysEx message of the same length as the ones occurring in the firmware: under Exclusive, set Length to 304, then press Send and watch the BCR: does the input light flash once?

To test the path FROM the BCR:
If you have some other MIDI device that outputs MIDI messages, you may connect it to the input of your USB-to-MIDI device and check whether the computer (e.g. BC Manager's "MIDI input messages" window) receives MIDI data.

To test the USB-to-MIDI device's SysEx behavior:
If your USB-to-MIDI device is an actual box with sockets in which you can plug MIDI cables: connect a MIDI cable directly between the USB-to-MIDI device's input and output sockets, and see what happens when you send SysEx messages (e.g. from BC Manager's "MIDI System messages" window) to the device: do the messages come back unscathed (e.g. in BC Manager's "MIDI input messages" window)?

Hope this helps (well, SOME of it, at least...),
Mark.