Been thinking recently about setting up a second scope system. I've got a 3 card system at the moment (PulsarII and 2x Powersampler). This gives me 3 z-link ports and possibly 4 if I ever get round to buying that other luna adat expansion. Now I know that CW only seem to mention the use of z-link for the i/o boxes but I was wondering, can use them to connect Scope systems together?
This way if I had 2 pc's each running scope systems I could get up to 32 channels of 24/96 audio going between the two systems.
I realise there may be a sync or power issue and don't want to destroy my Scope system. Has anyone ever tried this?
Z-link connection between scopes?
you can safely burry the idea of connecting systems via z-link.
there's absolutely no chance that it will work.
z-link uses the standard ieee 1394 (firewire) protocol, but (as everyone else) with a custom content of the data packets.
'standard' means speed and format of data packets, but there's no standard whatsoever about what these packets contain.
It's similiar to tcp/ip (for internet services) where you have http, ftp, etc as 'detail-protocols'.
Yamaha's m-lan does what you want (as a 1394 based system), but requires custom chips for dispatching data. Speed requiresments in such setups are extremely high, one cannot do it in software only, let alone under a M$ based OS...
A peek at the Yamaha pages is quite interesting in technical context - it's really not that simple.
cheers, Tom
there's absolutely no chance that it will work.
z-link uses the standard ieee 1394 (firewire) protocol, but (as everyone else) with a custom content of the data packets.
'standard' means speed and format of data packets, but there's no standard whatsoever about what these packets contain.
It's similiar to tcp/ip (for internet services) where you have http, ftp, etc as 'detail-protocols'.
Yamaha's m-lan does what you want (as a 1394 based system), but requires custom chips for dispatching data. Speed requiresments in such setups are extremely high, one cannot do it in software only, let alone under a M$ based OS...
A peek at the Yamaha pages is quite interesting in technical context - it's really not that simple.
cheers, Tom
I'm guessing the stupid box must contain some of those custom chips you were talking about.
- Kind of explains the price I suppose.
But do the cards with z-link not contain these same custom chips? otherwise how would the card be able to translate the data?
In other words if you take a cable and connect it from the z-link port on one scope system (MASTER) to the z-link port on another Scope system (This one would be set to SLAVE to the z-link) Why should this not work?
Sorry if I'm missing the point, but I was expecting to come across a problem related to power distribution through a direct connection like this.
What I didn't expect to find was that one Scope system would be talking gibberish to the other using this kind of connection.
- Kind of explains the price I suppose.
But do the cards with z-link not contain these same custom chips? otherwise how would the card be able to translate the data?
In other words if you take a cable and connect it from the z-link port on one scope system (MASTER) to the z-link port on another Scope system (This one would be set to SLAVE to the z-link) Why should this not work?
Sorry if I'm missing the point, but I was expecting to come across a problem related to power distribution through a direct connection like this.
What I didn't expect to find was that one Scope system would be talking gibberish to the other using this kind of connection.
oops, now I've messed it up...
point one: custom chips
that's a Yamaha m-lan item - and you have to imagine m-lan as functionally identical to the S/TDM bus that's used to interconnect Scope boards. Just serial, not parallel.
Simplyfied Yamaha says the routing requirements are so fast that it's impossible to do with 'regular programming'.
You can imagine how fast the bits have to be sorted if 24 channels are sending 32 data bits each, plus checksum and error correction - and all has to be distributed to the various 'processing items' preferably with less than a couple of milliseconds latency...
There are no such custom chips in the 2496 boxes. I've never opened one, but imho CWA simply cannot afford such a developement
And it's not necessary anyway - the boxes are just plain input and output and not signal distribution.
I mentioned m-lan because it does exactly what you want (and it is comparable to what an SFP system does with the S/TDM bus) to illustrate how complicated and demanding such a solution is (if more than plain IO is required).
point two - supply power
there is a slight chance that you burn (physically btw - at least) one of the computers if you connect them by a z-link cable with powerlines, IF both computers have a different 'ground level' because they are supplied by different main sources.
cheers, Tom
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2005-06-24 08:48 ]</font>
point one: custom chips
that's a Yamaha m-lan item - and you have to imagine m-lan as functionally identical to the S/TDM bus that's used to interconnect Scope boards. Just serial, not parallel.
Simplyfied Yamaha says the routing requirements are so fast that it's impossible to do with 'regular programming'.
You can imagine how fast the bits have to be sorted if 24 channels are sending 32 data bits each, plus checksum and error correction - and all has to be distributed to the various 'processing items' preferably with less than a couple of milliseconds latency...
There are no such custom chips in the 2496 boxes. I've never opened one, but imho CWA simply cannot afford such a developement
And it's not necessary anyway - the boxes are just plain input and output and not signal distribution.
I mentioned m-lan because it does exactly what you want (and it is comparable to what an SFP system does with the S/TDM bus) to illustrate how complicated and demanding such a solution is (if more than plain IO is required).
point two - supply power
there is a slight chance that you burn (physically btw - at least) one of the computers if you connect them by a z-link cable with powerlines, IF both computers have a different 'ground level' because they are supplied by different main sources.
cheers, Tom
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2005-06-24 08:48 ]</font>
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Guest
Damn, I hate being wrong all the time.
Would be nice if CW could address this issue somehow.
Maybe a z-link hub or thru box of some sort would solve the problem. Or maybe that would just complicate it further.
I'm guessing that if you snipped the power cable on the z-link connection it wouldn't work either. Am I right? Is the idea a total write-off?
Suppose I'll just have to free up some adat connections ...or ditch the 2nd Scope system idea altogether ...or wait till CW develop some new cards, by which time they'll either have sorted this z-link issue out ...or they'll have found some way to connect the new Scope boards to the old ones (apart from STDM)
Would be nice if CW could address this issue somehow.
Maybe a z-link hub or thru box of some sort would solve the problem. Or maybe that would just complicate it further.
I'm guessing that if you snipped the power cable on the z-link connection it wouldn't work either. Am I right? Is the idea a total write-off?
Suppose I'll just have to free up some adat connections ...or ditch the 2nd Scope system idea altogether ...or wait till CW develop some new cards, by which time they'll either have sorted this z-link issue out ...or they'll have found some way to connect the new Scope boards to the old ones (apart from STDM)
Maybe the next ver' OS could have Network tools & capabilities built in. It could have modules/software for streaming multitrack audio & midi accross a network. Whole point being....
Multiple Scope Systems, i suppose ala m-lan or re-wire would be a good example of network implementation....not to mention Waves accelerators....or is that bad language
Multiple Scope Systems, i suppose ala m-lan or re-wire would be a good example of network implementation....not to mention Waves accelerators....or is that bad language