Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Octinct Story

Originally Developed by Jonathan Guberman during the time I was working on the arduino monome project, the Tinct was a 4x4 fully pwm adjustable color buttonpad designed to be compatible with the monome serial protocol. Eventually Jonathan designed a PCB and wrote a custom router and firmware. Once he had the software working properly the proof of concept was the end of his desire to continue the project (not to mention serious school obligations).

Devon Jones breadboarded his Octinct as well and wrote a better performing router in python, all the meanwhile my Ocinct remained in a drawer soldered up but never functional due to my desire not the breadboard it. The Octinct uses 24-pin IDC cables which are fairly difficult to integrate into a breadboard unless you purchase specialized cables. The original intention was that Jonathan would eventually create a control board that would tie all the boards together, however it never developed. Similarly at the time the wishes of the buttonpads creator were that the buttonpads to remain closed source.

After the popularity the arduinome recieved I thought it was time to revisit the Octinct as something the monome community may have actual interest in.

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