I visited a concert of Jean Michel Jarre last week, which I'm a huge fan of.

Jarre played many very nice retro-instruments live, and also his Laserharp - check out YouTube for some video's of Jarre playing this unique instrument .



Years ago I built a laserharp my own, out of 10 seperate red laser diodes, and always was thinking of building it again using a more advanced design and a better (higher power) laser.

So, now I'm finally soing so, selecting parts and prepping for this project: a rebuild of Jarre's laserharp.

Here's a video of a simulation to determine the complexity of the DAC to use. Well, I could easily use a 8 or 16 bit DAC, but I have some reasons to limit the bits.

I finally built and upgraded some K-Mouse interfaces, and tested two of them together as master and slave, you can see the result here on YouTube.

Here are some pics of the setup:

I've put this video on YouTube, showing a modified external PC Keyboard Interface now behaving as internal Spectrum keyboard.

It's wires are soldered on the keyboard connectors or on the parts that are connected to them, and there are no extra parts needed.

In fact this internal version of the interface can do with some parts less, mainly the edge connector that is in the way now.

I will make some internal interfaces for sale, but not earlier than the beginning of june, as I'm actively relaxing for the next three weeks ;)

Here are some pictures:

I've just put an email out to Futurlec for the production of 50 PCB's of the Kempston Mouse Turbo interface.

It will be the same version as the one that was manufactured by Velesoft last year (thanks to Anestis for coördining that batch).

There was some confusion about what version I should make: Velesoft already designed a new PCB for the Kempston Mouse Turbo, calling that version the 'K-Mouse 2008'.
But in fact it has the same functionallity as the batch of last year, that was based on the 2006 version (if you download the PCB of the 2006 version, you even see that it is named 'KMT KMOUSE2005_RES5.brd').

Because Velesoft has not yet produced interfaces based on the new 2008 PCB, I will stay safe with the 2006 version, that I now call: '2006+', or should I call it '2006->2008' or whatever? ;)

So it will be this interface - mods are circled:



I've tested one modified 2006 version, and it works great.

I will start with this interface and continue with the DIVIDE and PC Keyboard interface later.


I'm away for a holiday the next weeks, so please be a little more patient!!
I think I'll have a batch complete in a month.


By the way, I'm also working on an internal version of the PC Keyboard Interface.
Testing it at the moment.
Main difference with the external interface will be that you're not able to update the interface from the Spectrum like the external version.
Also it will still depend on the keyboard if games that need multiple key-pressed work correctly, it's not the interface.

This internal version will be mostly interesting for people with an MB02 interface, as the external version causes compatibility problems with the MB02.
Chances are that even the +2A, +2B and +3 will work with this internal interface, but I'm not sure.

I'm almost finished with details about production of three well-known interfaces: the DivIDE, the K-Mouse (or Kempston Mouse Turbo) and the PC Keyboard Interface.

There is one main aspect I have to check out: Velesoft created a new version of the K-Mouse interface, and I need to check if all sources of that interface are available.
If so, I may produce that new version instead of the older one (the previous batch I produced was also the older 2006 version).

Also I have no idea if something about the functionallity really changed with the new K-Mouse 2008 version compared to the older one.
If anyone knows a reason why I must create the new version, please let me know.

Anyway, prices come at 35 euro for DivIDE and K-Mouse, and 30 for the PC Keyboard Interface.

Postage will be 10 euro for Europe and 15 for the rest of the world.