MOTM

> At one time I intended to be a purist and not buy any module containing
> a microprocessor.  Part of my reticence was due to the lack of kits in
> this genre.  That didn't last long.  First I bought an Encore Frequency
> Shifter.  Then of course a MOTM-650.

I would *VERY* much like to see the MOTM-650 done in an all-analog form. 
That would be super impressive - from both an engineering and a cost 
perspective. ;-)

It is possible to do digital control that is indistinguishable from true 
analog control but like Paul said, "digital done right". Sadly there are 
a lot of implementations that are sub-par, causing many to believe that 
digital control is the root of the problem.

"doing it right" requires a bit more up front design considerations to 
ensure that enough precision is used, update rates to DACs are fast 
enough, and cumulative/rounding errors don't enter in to the operation.

As an aside, when we did the 650 firmware, our goal was for the 
"ridiculous" case. We wound up using 16.16 bit arithmetic for things like 
portamento, which gives us a full DAC range sweep from anywhere from 3ms 
to 149 days. That bit of resolution gives a VERY smooth portamento, 
regardless of the rate in question.

-->Neil

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C. Neil Bradley - KE7IXP - The one eyed man in the land of the blind is not
                            king. He's a prisoner.