Unofficial modifications or beta OS

how about this.. everyone that contributes to the OS fund will get their chance to vote for the features they want to see most in the new mpc OS. we could easily make up a survey with top suggestions and even allow them to write comments or alternate suggestions (if the suggestions are really good we could do another poll). the contributers will only be allowed to select their top 10-15 of features listed. their selections will go into the final considerations for the new OS.

as far as proving it's not a scam.. not totally sure how to do that. one idea would be to keep a public list of contributors and a total of funds raised from each donation. or even then, just have a private site where only contributing members can log in to see the progress. if someone who donated doesn't see their name listed they will know and tell the rest.


1-0ne

Wow, I'm impressed with you guys thinking! I would think that an escrow account could be set up to hold the funds and maybe have the fine administrators of mpc-forums to help sponsor this which would be a great chance to catch the attention of those MPC users that aren't familiar with their services. It would probably be best to start with an online signup or survey to establish an intrest and gather supporter information, form a commitee to be a voice for the members and mediate between the members and who ever is hired to do the work, obtain an attorney to either create or oversee the contract drawn up between the organization and the software engineer. It would be best to hire the services of a former Akai employee that has worked with the product (a curent employee would have a conflict of intrest). If enough people banned together to form an organization, I think it would be most beneficial to approach Akai first since they already have the resources and it would really be a rewrite of the code they already have in their pocession. And, whoever does the work needs to to be willing to provide support in case of bugs are found in the new code. My vote would be for better file management and FAT32 support; that's my only complaint.

right on,

i'm sure if there were enough users behind it we could approached AKAI with the proposal... they might just go for it. well hey we would be providing further support for their products so why not?

oh another feature came to mind when reading posts about burned out LCD screens.

some kind of screen saver that kicks in when it's been idle for some time (shuts screen off or some kind of graphic).

an ex-akai programmer would be ideal for the job but if that is not possible we need to find out what type of programming is necessary and what type of code knowledge we need to look for in prospective programmers.

if tutor is down for promoting the idea on the forum we could have a poll survey for input up pretty soon (could be done via e-mail or online form).

anyone up for starting an OS committee?

1-0ne

Let's look at our needed resources first:
1) Will Tutor sponsor such a movement?
2) Can we get ahold of a competent attorney for legal advice in the matter?
3) We need someone(s) who's willing to be the contact person(s) and take phone calls and make them on our behalf throughout the day; obviosly someone who's got a lot of time on their hands and preferably someone who's been a member a lot longer than say someone like myself. A person of good rapor with the other members and Tutor.
4) We need someone in Akai or who has contacts with someone in Akai that is supportive of what we're trying to accomplish.
5) We really need to be concrete and presice as to what we're after before approaching anyone on the outside with the requests and rate them in priority (based on popularity and technical probability) because do know will have to be willing to compromise.

We also need to have someone start up a website to get users to sign a petition for continued support in order to get Akai's attention. Any takers that know anything about setting up websites? Tutor, are you down?

As much as I admire your enthusiasm, I don't think it's feasible considering the effort involved in reverse-engineering the entire machine.

What I mean is that writing an operating system for a machine that you know in and out and whose hardware is well documented is a hard task. Writing one for a machine that's not well documented (I'm talking internals, which chip goes where, interrupts etc etc, not user manual here) is even harder.

mrfaia wrote:We also need to have someone start up a website to get users to sign a petition for continued support in order to get Akai's attention. Any takers that know anything about setting up websites? Tutor, are you down?

Sorry to disappoint, but I simply have not got the time or energy to get involved in any way, shape or form. I also think it's not a particularly attractive proposal - sounds like a lot of work, time and hassle spent trying to upgrade an old (dated?) sampler. Personally, I would investigate buying the MPC4000, or why not start up your own sampler company and create your own sampler from scratch - at least that way you wont be limited by the existing MPC2000 hardware.

In fact, I reckon more time spent making music and learning to overcome the MPC's (apparent!) limitations is in order

MPC-Tutor wrote: In fact, I reckon more time spent making music and learning to overcome the MPC's (apparent!) limitations is in order

im afraid thats going to be common reaction, which may well doom the project from the start...
no one would complain if a link was posted: hey download a free new os for your mpc! but will people pay or get excited about it if its something along the lines of: hey send ten bucks and in one-two years you can downloas a new os!
Problem is, we are all trained at this point to buy new computers every two-three years. Akai wants us all to buy new mpcs (they dont make money off of the new os).
thing to do is e-mail the guy at propellerhead who did the unofficial os for the yamaha sampler (see link I posted earlier in this thread) and ask for his advice (would it be worth it, how did he do it, did he ever make any money off of it, etc.)
oh yeah, and wait to hear mpc3000's opinion of the feasibility which i respect in all matters technical like this...

one thing though: even if it isnt possible, it still might be a good idea to try and go through with the project anyway... If akai got the idea that there was an interest on this level (ie people putting their money where their mouths are) they might A) release the code, or B) do the upgrades themselves...

mrfaia wrote:Wow, I'm impressed with you guys thinking! I would think that an escrow account could be set up to hold the funds and maybe have the fine administrators of mpc-forums to help sponsor this which would be a great chance to catch the attention of those MPC users that aren't familiar with their services. It would probably be best to start with an online signup or survey to establish an intrest and gather supporter information, form a commitee to be a voice for the members and mediate between the members and who ever is hired to do the work, obtain an attorney to either create or oversee the contract drawn up between the organization and the software engineer. It would be best to hire the services of a former Akai employee that has worked with the product (a curent employee would have a conflict of intrest). If enough people banned together to form an organization, I think it would be most beneficial to approach Akai first since they already have the resources and it would really be a rewrite of the code they already have in their pocession. And, whoever does the work needs to to be willing to provide support in case of bugs are found in the new code. My vote would be for better file management and FAT32 support; that's my only complaint.

All this for an old machine? It won't happen.

Lampdog wrote:
All this for an old machine? It won't happen.

while you may be right (in fact, I wouldnt bet against you), stranger things have happened...

i e-mailed nuedge, the only company i know of who has sucessfully done something like this (to an old machine) aksing them about the feasibility of the project (just in terms of what they had to go through) so we'll see if they e-mail me back (i wouldnt bet on that either).

descartes wrote:while you may be right (in fact, I wouldnt bet against you), stranger things have happened... This is TRUE!! :D

i e-mailed nuedge, the only company i know of who has sucessfully done something like this (to an old machine) aksing them about the feasibility of the project (just in terms of what they had to go through) so we'll see if they e-mail me back (i wouldnt bet on that either).

haha

the last thread with this many views was also about the operating system (if it was going to be upgraded in the move from the grey to the blue xl) so there is interest...

not, of course, that it makes any difference...

wow....40g's to upgrade an old machine to do what s/w and a lil discipline and work does for a hhhhhhuuuuggggeee fraction of the cost?......

Swissmaster Cheese wrote:wow....40g's to upgrade an old machine to do what s/w and a lil discipline and work does for a hhhhhhuuuuggggeee fraction of the cost?......

im sure most people who would be behind this are those like myself who have been using the mpc (with much persistence and discipline) for a long time and would like to see certain time consuming tasks (that have nothing to do with making music) streamlined...

the 1st question is: if such an os upgrade existed would you use it? I think many people would say yes...

the 2nd question: would you be willing to donate money to see it happen (if its possible) i think most people would say no... why? because people want stuff for free. if they could down-load or pirate an mpc for free im sure no one would even pay for that.

so all the nay-sayers are right... the idea probably wont happen... we should all be happy with the mpc os the way it is...

at the same time, however, i dont think its hurting anyone to dream about it, is it?

true that,

even then. i'm looking at the roger linn site and he upgraded the mpc60 and that was fairly successful. he even added SCSI capabilities to a hardware piece that was hopelessly outdated. perhaps there could be a hardware device similar to the one roger linn made but gives USB capabilities to the mpc 2000xl (and the extra flashrom needed to hold the OS. there is an internal SCSI port that isn't usually used in most setups so maybe connect it there). no one would argue about paying for that add on with the OS.

regardess of whether that's possible or not doesn't matter. there is still the potential for something to be developed and there are thousands of people with the same equipment but are forced to use other things to get what they want out of their mpc.

i think anyone who has invested in the mpc would like to see it reach full potential. why can't we make it the best production tool, better?

why are we saying it's an old machine when akai still sells these things new? it's not like it's a discontinued product.

1-0ne