Making the Mark IV more of an open system would benefit the user community
greatly, especially a decade or two from now when Yamaha may have no
desire to continue supporting the product themselves. At that point, the
Linux-based control computer will be obsolete, parts for it will be hard
to find, the PDA remote will have long since failed, etc. Yet, the
solenoid control system and sensor "guts" of the Disklavier may still be
perfectly functional, and the piano itself will be fine.
I can easily see a third party interfacing a new front-end to those
components to keep the system going, but given the complexity of the
system, it may be difficult without help from Yamaha. And, with the
current flurry of anti-interoperability lawsuits, by the time it becomes
necessary to do this work, it may be *illegal* without Yamaha's blessing.
Mark Fontana
Message
Re: [disklavier] Re: Hacks, accessories, after-market items
2006-11-07 by Carl Youngblood
Hear! Hear! If anyone from Yamaha is listening, please do everything you can to convince them to open-source the software portion of their systems and expose public APIs whereever it makes sense to do so. It's very common for hardware companies to open-source the drivers for their systems, since they make money off the hardware and not the software, and it promotes goodwill among consumers and increases the value of their product, since they are in essence getting free labor from hordes of hobbyists who have more time and resources to develop the product than they do.
Carl Youngblood
On Nov 7, 2006, at 12:11 PM, Mark Fontana wrote: