Disklavier

Hello all,

I'm certainly surprised and pleased to see such enthusiasm regarding
our software controller for the Disklavier.  I never expected anyone
to actually scrutinize those development notes I made while working on
the project :-)

As Chris mentioned, we choose Flash initially because we suspected the
original software used Flash due to its transparency effects and
animations.  It also seemed like a good choice because it had a built
in class called XMLSocket which would conveniently send XML on ports >
1024, just like the original software.  It is too bad we never got
access to some of Yamaha's UI Elements; with those in place, the
software would have a much more familiar feel to less technical users.

In retrospect, I do agree that the overall architecture of the
software is somewhat of a hack due to the java backend running in a
separate process.  Note that this whole thing was thrown together in
about 4 months with only one person working on it, and no help from
Yamaha, so I had little time to evaluate and implement a more elegant
solution. 

We had already invested a large amount of time in Flash when I
realized I needed a direct database connection.  I couldn't find any
free Flash plugins/source that could send SQL statements
synchronously.  A few existed, but they cost money, and we wanted the
software to be completely free and redistributable.  To get around
this problem, I implemented the Java backend, which of course takes
XML from the Flash app, restructures it into a query, and then sends
the results back to the Flash app asynchronously. 

If members here are interested in rearchitecting the program, I would
 be wary of Flash.  It is not what I would consider an elegant or
powerful language.  Even the simplest tasks took hours to accomplish,
and in the version I was using (Flash 8), there were very annoying
bugs.  For example, in certain cases, the program compilation is
actually affected by where you place comments in the code! 
Ridiculous, I know.  That's not to say that if you didn't use Flash,
you couldn't make a pretty interface.  There are a lot of great
alternatives now that look as good, if not better, than Flash...
including things you can do with WPF 3.0 and Silverlight (though I
haven't worked with them first-hand myself).

When we were asking Yamaha if we could publish the paper disclosing
details of their software, they mentioned that they might incorporate
additional security precautions in future versions.  I don't know if
that is a good or bad thing, but I certainly hope they keep the
protocol open and easy for third party devs to access.  Plus, judging
by their current history of software releases, this shouldn't happen
any time soon.

Regardless of Yamaha's position, a community of Disklavier users
enthusiastic about improving the capabilities of their instrument will
only serve to promote Yamaha's product.  I'll be happy to stop by here
every so often and provide any insight I can.  I do work full time now
doing software development, so when I come home at the end of the day,
writing software is usually quite low on my activity list; but I still
live near the University and will be happy to support any development
efforts that commence (testing, troubleshooting, different firmwares,
etc).

I can help you get the software working if you would be so kind as to
post details such as: firmware version, PostgreSQL JDBC driver
version, java version, exact error messages, and the like.  I know of
at least 3 people around the world that have got it working successfully.

Thanks for your interest!