OS in CVP

[sbrbot]

What operating system (OS) is used inside Yamaha CVP instruments? I know that it is probably Yamaha's proprietary system but does anybody have any other information about it?

I can reacall how I was impressed when I saw that Korg's Oasys synthesizer is based on embedded linux (one can see it during well known boot process).

[wally]

Lol. I think this is one of the funniest threads I've seen in here for a while. It makes me recall a discussion I had several years ago with the VP of sales for the Clavinova line worldwide -- he was from Yamaha in Japan. He asked me about the CVPUG's membership and how I would characterize the types of people who purchased CVPs.

I told him that most of the people who buy CVPs are geeks who like to dabble in music. He thought that was funny because that's not who they designed it for. I would like to show him your question!! :D

[sbrbot]

I told him that most of the people who buy CVPs are geeks who like to dabble in music. He thought that was funny because that's not who they designed it for. I would like to show him your question!! :D

OK, I'm not music professional. I'm electrical engineer working in telecom branch, skilled in programming and system/db administration but have music school and big interests in music (specially arranging). So this question is probably professionally colored but what does it matter?

Few days ago I met colleague of mine who has CLP Clavinova. When I told him that my new CVP-403 had a small Internet browser built in he responded with almost the same attitude. Why?, I think that IDC is not bad idea (besides prices and this money collecting policy).

Few years ago mobile phones were very closed in terms of internal software. Today it is very usual that people create software for mobile phones (that includes me too), browse Internet, transfer data, etc. This will probably happened with Yamaha's Clavinovas too in future, why not? ;-)

[sbrbot]

BTW, have you heard my arrangements attached on this forum ;-)

[dbjorck]

I told him that most of the people who buy CVPs are geeks who like to dabble in music. He thought that was funny because that's not who they designed it for.

LOL, that explains a lot. On the other hand... it makes them look bad as well. If they designed it specifically for "non-geeks"; why do they still have the SYSEX and XGPrm commands in hex after all these years, instead of plain word explanations?! Serious useability and customer targeting issue I think.

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

Please do not advocate for removing internal MIDI/SYSEX editor. :-) I use it for small manual correction and adjustment of song notes and parameters and really appreciate this functionality. I even think that it should be extended.

There's nothing better than SYSEX editor for correcting song typos. ;-)

[dbjorck]

Hi!

I use it too (although rarely due to it's user unfriendliness - who can remember all the hexadecimal codes?) I didn't mean to remove it, but the opposite; open it up for more people to use by making it more useable. Ie, instead of "Sys/Ex. F0 43 73 01 50 11 01 02 32 F7", put "String Resonance Depth Val: 32 Ch: 01"

PS. You don't change notes with System Exclusive or XG Parameters... What exact SYSEX/XGPrm settings do you usually change?

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

I use it too (although rarely due to it's user unfriendliness - who can remember all the hexadecimal codes?) I didn't mean to remove it, but the opposite; open it up for more people to use by making it more useable. Ie, instead of "Sys/Ex. F0 43 73 01 50 11 01 02 32 F7", put "String Resonance Depth Val: 32 Ch: 01"

PS. You don't change notes with System Exclusive or XG Parameters... What exact SYSEX/XGPrm settings do you usually change?

Actually I do not change XG parameters, I used the term SysEx editor few times before but I was thinking about tabs /CHORD\/ 1-16 \ but how to call them - editor? I usualy delete wrong notes, change one note into another one, change volume, duration, insertion moment etc. Sometimes it is much easier to manually change one note than to record the section again.

[dbjorck]

Hi!

I was suspecting that, especially in your latest #4 post as well (didn't you already have a different #4 before?) You can call it just the Song Creator and/or the 1-16 tab. But specifying it as SysEx indicates the specific meta events that are only available on the actual SysEx tab, so you really shouldn't use that term for normal song editing.

Brgds

Danny

[nickb]

Hehe,

I am also a engineer and that is why I care a lot about specifications. I own a Tyros 2. It is a cool instrument, but some features could be easily improved or implemented. So a open OS would be really great!!
Other thing that makes me sad about the Yamaha instruments is the quality of the screen, at least for Tyros 2 and the CVPs I already saw, like the CVP-309.

I am waiting to buy a CVP for almost 3 years because they didn't have enough features. I am still hoping for the CGP-1000...

[sbrbot]

I agree that CVP's screen is not of the highest quality (a lot of mobile phones today do have much better screen quality).

Open OS, huh, isn't that too much to be expected from Yamaha (or any other keyboard manufacturer)? But this would be nice!

[dbjorck]

Hi!

Open OS, huh, isn't that too much to be expected from Yamaha
?? You just said yourself earlier in this thread that the Korg Oasys uses Linux. Why then would the same be too much to expect from Yamaha? I'm starting to see a trend here of you expecting very little indeed from Yamaha in particular?

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

Actually you're right. I have some reserves for Yamaha. It seems to me that Yamaha is more closed than other manufacturers. Yamaha wants to copyright and protect from sharing everything that belongs to Yamaha. OK, that's their approach and nothing's illegal with it but we as customers do expect more freeware software, more free scores, more additional stuff...

That tells me that Yamaha will not offer their operating system to public soon!

[dbjorck]

Hi!

Indeed. That is why we as their customer base need to speak up. We can't just roll over and play dead, thinking that "they won't do anything anyway, so let's not even expect anything from them".

I would never have expected them to open up their own OS. But I do think that if they instead switched to an already available and proven open OS such as Linux, they could make a giant leap in their offerings fairly quickly.

After all, their core business is not writing operating systems. That means any change needed to it will be very painful for them. They don't have all the skills needed, and only their own programmers who wrote it will know what to do. But, if they switched to an open OS, they have one which is developed by OS experts (who know what they're doing), and access to a huge community of developers. I mean, take just the fact that it only supports some wireless adapters - in fact down to versions of the same model. That is a joke which clearly indicates the people who wrote this OS are not actual OS experts. No selfrespecting OS has such weird restrictions.

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

Indeed. That is why we as their customer base need to speak up. We can't just roll over and play dead, thinking that "they won't do anything anyway, so let's not even expect anything from them".
I even don't know does anybody forward this information from Wish list to Yamaha or this is just for fun.
I would never have expected them to open up their own OS. But I do think that if they instead switched to an already available and proven open OS such as Linux, they could make a giant leap in their offerings fairly quickly.
I'd also like Linux in background but that's really not up to us.
After all, their core business is not writing operating systems. That means any change needed to it will be very painful for them. They don't have all the skills needed, and only their own programmers who wrote it will know what to do. But, if they switched to an open OS, they have one which is developed by OS experts (who know what they're doing), and access to a huge community of developers. I mean, take just the fact that it only supports some wireless adapters - in fact down to versions of the same model. That is a joke which clearly indicates the people who wrote this OS are not actual OS experts. No selfrespecting OS has such weird restrictions.Finally we can agree or disagree with Yamaha's business policy. We can contact them and send them our expectations and wishes that could be used as a basis for ne developments in future but finally it's up to them to define their own business policy.

[hpeterh]

Hi!

Look here:
http://www.mvista.com/downloads/Case_study_MontaVista_Linux_and_Yamaha.pdf

regards,

Peter

[hpeterh]

Judging from this and other sources, Yamaha used µITron RTOS on their products and currently is on the move to Montevista realtime Linux. (TRON is a generic specification for an Realtime OS developed from japanese Universities, and possibly Montevista also fulfills the specification)

regards,

Peter

[dbjorck]

Hi!

I couldn't open the pdf (Acrobat Reader says it's damaged), but that sounds very cool indeed!

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

Here is one additional link but look at the date of article, year 2002.

http://www.embeddedstar.com/press/content/2002/11/embedded6072.html

In 2002 they already were speaking about MontaVista Linux real-time operating system (RTOS). It seems that they needed 5 years to launch MOTIF XS with this new operating system.

But at the end of the day, new era is beginning.

[dbjorck]

Hi!

Very interesting indeed. The Motif models are really interesting too - but still not quite at the level where I would want to stand on the rooftops and laugh at the moon.

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

MOTIF is synthesizer, CVP is arranger. That's big difference.

[dancaputi]

There may not be any mods or hacks floating around for CVP's BUT...

A while back, Midi Magic gave me some script (HTML?) that ran some very interesting demos on the CVP. You techies may want to look for that stuff and reverse engineer it. See where that leads you ;)

- Dan C.

[dbjorck]

Hi!

Can you post that script?

Brgds

Danny

[dancaputi]

I have all that stuff on my old laptop which unfortunately is no longer in my posession. I have backups laying around but maybe MM has it handy.

I've sent him a PM and CC'd you.

- Dan C.

[sbrbot]

I'd like to see what it is too, so please, attach this here.

[Midi Magic]

Hi

The Demo was done for the CVP 2xx so it may not work with newer cvps

You will need to play with the .bat file name to get it to run on other cvps.

For 3xx try YAMAHA_dmi_307.BAT YAMAHA_dmi_309.BAT

Danny, if it works i'll send you one that I made up.

[dbjorck]

Hi!

I couldn't get the demo application itself to run on the 309. But there wasn't much technical revelations anyway, just some simple HTML pages and MIDI files. It's nice to see how Yamaha put their demo MIDI's together though. I must look into the Modulation event more.

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

Wait, wait, wait... how this "demo" (this bat file) is supposed to be started? How to reach this BAT file, since CVP filetrs views of files depending on function you select in menu. So, if you select SONG SELECT function, CVP shows only files with MID extension, if one selects STYLES CVP shows only files with STY extensions etc. What function or command I have to select in order to be able to see BAT file. Or this "demo" is supposed to be started through "DEMO" button ... or what?

How does it work on your CVP-209, how you start this demo or how you reach this BAT file?

[Midi Magic]

You unzip the files to a floppy disk and just put the disk in the floppy drive. The cvp will then run the demo. It works fine on my 209

[Midi Magic]

Hi Danny

Did you rename the bat file for your 309?

[dbjorck]

Hi!

No, what's it supposed to be called?

Brgds

Danny

[Midi Magic]

Hi Danny


You didn't read all of my original post.........

"You will need to play with the .bat file name to get it to run on other cvps.

For 3xx try YAMAHA_dmi_307.BAT YAMAHA_dmi_309.BAT"

Rename the bat file to YAMAHA_dmi_309.bat

Try that one.

[sbrbot]

You unzip the files to a floppy disk and just put the disk in the floppy drive. The cvp will then run the demo. It works fine on my 209
I do not have FDD only USB. In menu settings I defined files to be opened upon insertion of USB memory (probably that should result in autostart). Unzipped files in root of USB stick, renamed BAT file into YAMAHA_dmi_209.BAT, YAMAHA_dmi_307.BAT, YAMAHA_dmi_403.BAT and nothing is happening. My CVP-403 does not start demo from USB.

BTW, this functionality to start some BAT file automatically upon insertion of floppy disk ... is this described somewhere or this is undocumented trick.

[Midi Magic]

Hi Danny

Send me an email direct and I will send you what I have.

Maybe it would work with a USB Floppy DD

[dbjorck]

Hi!

Hi Danny
You didn't read all of my original post.........
"You will need to play with the .bat file name to get it to run on other cvps.
For 3xx try YAMAHA_dmi_307.BAT YAMAHA_dmi_309.BAT"
Rename the bat file to YAMAHA_dmi_309.bat
Try that one.
Sorry, I missed that. I did actually go back to read your original post to see if there were renaming instructions, but I didn't see it. I must have been reading the wrong post or something.

Anyway I now have it autorunning, by renaming the file to YAMAHA_dmi_309GP. However, it says "Auto execution syntax error. Command parameter is not correct"...

It's just at the beginning so I'm guessing that it's the call to start the feature2 song - it doesn't start playing either so it must be that. It includes the drive letter A in the song file parameter, but it's called USB1 on the 309. I've tried changing it to USB1:, USB1\\, USB1:\\, and leaving it out altogether but they all give the same syntax error.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that when the floppy became optional and external instead of internal, this kind of thing would no longer work. But the 209 floppy is external as well isn't it? Or is it internal? I don't quite remember.

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

USB1:\\ does not have sense. A: is usually mapped floppy disk drive. Drive is always mapped in operating system on one letter (A:, B:, C:, D:, ... never something like USB1: ) If you insert your USB stick into PC it is mapped on letter F: etc. not USB: Maybe we should find out which letter our CVP uses for inserted USB stick.

[dbjorck]

Hi!

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it was only DOS that introduced simplified drive letters like A: etc. As this thread started out asking, we don't know what OS it is actually using. It is hardly using DOS as they would then probably have to pay Microsoft a lot of royalties (on the other hand, perhaps that is why they no longer can afford any major innovation? ;) )

In Unix, that was created some twenty years before DOS, it would be something like /dev/d01r01 (don't bother correcting me on this, the file name would be not only different from Unix standard to Unix leading up to system five, and slightly different from vendor to vendor, but it was and is open for netadms to call what ever they want - and I've seen many different naming standards for device files) The point is that devices are not at all universally known by a drive letter by all OS's that exist. In fact, one original intention of Vista was to remove it completely. That didn't entirely happen but it is still on their plans for the future.

What I was trying was to run through the various naming standards from various OS that I've come across in my 20 years in the field. The one that you are for some reason criticizing as not making any sense, I believe was the syntax of the first version of NextStep for PC Beta in 1991 (a great object oriented OS). It was changed later to follow the Unix syntax described above I think.

And in any event, as we do not know what OS the CVP is running, we do not know what syntax it is. It could be anything from A to A/B:\C-ddd-xhjkjhjh.93485739485793845. - there is absolutely nothing that says it must be a drive letter

Brgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

And in any event, as we do not know what OS the CVP is running, we do not know what syntax it is. It could be anything from A to A/B:\C-ddd-xhjkjhjh.93485739485793845. - there is absolutely nothing that says it must be a drive letter
NeXT, huh? Yes, that's all fine, throughout this thread we found out that CVP uses µITron RTOS, didn't we. After all this somebody came here with BATCH !!! (MS-DOS like "executable") file (*.BAT) (plus additional HTML files) containing something like "A:\filename.htm" in it supposed to be runnable on CVP?

HOW? How would you explain that this is runnable on CVP?

[dbjorck]

Hi!

I'm not sure why you've started flaming me, but it was not at all concluded that the CVP runs TRON. There was a link to a pdf, which as I said I cannot open because my Acrobat Reader (which is the latest version) says it is corrupt. If that file says that ALL CVP's are TRON, I have not seen it. The only thing mentioned was the potential move, stated back in 2002, to Linux.

And just because the suffix is .bat does not mean it is a "PC .bat". Just try to run it on your PC and you'll see. It will not run, which means it is not MS-DOS as you suggest. The term Batch Processing has been around since the beginning of computing and caused plenty of .bat files in different OS's and scripting languages. The suffix is not absolutely linked to the language and syntax contained within.

Rgds

Danny

[sbrbot]

I'm not sure why you've started flaming me, but it was not at all concluded that the CVP runs TRON. There was a link to a pdf, which as I said I cannot open because my Acrobat Reader (which is the latest version) says it is corrupt. If that file says that ALL CVP's are TRON, I have not seen it. The only thing mentioned was the potential move, stated back in 2002, to Linux.

I did not start flame, I'm sorry if I sounded like that. I really appreciate your contribution here Danny. I'll try to attach this PDF here. It does not explicitly say that CVPs use µITron but it can be concluded. Also I think that OS of all CVP is based on the same platform.

And just because the suffix is .bat does not mean it is a "PC .bat". Just try to run it on your PC and you'll see. It will not run, which means it is not MS-DOS as you suggest. The term Batch Processing has been around since the beginning of computing and caused plenty of .bat files in different OS's and scripting languages. The suffix is not absolutely linked to the language and syntax contained within.


LABEL TEST

SONG_START "a:\feature2.mid"

"a:\p001.htm"
WAIT 1000
"a:\p002.htm"
WAIT 1000
"a:\p003.htm"
WAIT 1000
"a:\p004.htm"
WAIT 1000
"a:\p005.htm"
WAIT 1500
"a:\p006.htm"

WAIT SONGEND
GOTO TEST


Of course it will not run on PC. I didn't try but it's obvious (SONG_START?).

[hpeterh]

Hi,
I believe that the *.bat files are yamaha proprietary files, maybe originally this concept is inherited from dos.
The floppy has a FAT filesystem and there are no file-permissions like unix has.
In unix a shell script has execute permission and the extension is ignored.
So yamaha probably runs some proprietary homebrew interpreter on the *.bat file and the underlying OS doesnt matter here.

Edit:
While I believe, that they use embedded Linux, that doesnt necessary meant that they use unix and unix file systems and shells. Remember: "Linux" is the name for the kernel and not the name for high level applications, like shells or filesystems. So if they use a linux kernel, the drivers and the TCP stack and so on, this doesnt necessarily mean that they use unix and unix concepts...
Also they have to maintain compatibility to older devices, so they might just emulate some DOS behaviour or else.

regards,

Peter

[hpeterh]

Hi,

I do not have FDD only USB. In menu settings I defined files to be opened upon insertion of USB memory (probably that should result in autostart). Unzipped files in root of USB stick, renamed BAT file into YAMAHA_dmi_209.BAT, YAMAHA_dmi_307.BAT, YAMAHA_dmi_403.BAT and nothing is happening. My CVP-403 does not start demo from USB.

BTW, this functionality to start some BAT file automatically upon insertion of floppy disk ... is this described somewhere or this is undocumented trick.

Example
When a floppy is inserted, then the CVP 96 automatically scans the disk.
If some MID0 or EVT Files or other songs are on it, then it switches to song mode automatically and it is ready to play.

Just think about the customers that yamaha want to adress with the CVP:
They dont want to adress computer freaks, they dont want to adress techies. So they made everything as automatic as possible, and they try to hide the technical details. So that is (to my knowledge) not documented.

Some of the operations (Song conversion) work on DD discs only. So the operations that the CVP supports, are device specific for backward compatibilty.

Because Yamaha doesnt sell USB Sticks with music software, I would believe, that a *.BAT file on the USB Stick will not start, because the Clavinova doesnt look for BAT files there ;-)

The clavinova might have a µITRON or a Linux kernel, but that doesnt mean that it has a full blown filesystem and shell. That would be overkill for an embedded system, give a lot of confusion and could be a target for virusses ;-)

Peter

[sbrbot]

While I believe, that they use embedded Linux, that doesn't necessary mean that they use unix and unix file systems and shells. Remember: "Linux" is the name for the kernel and not the name for high level applications, like shells or filesystems. So if they use a linux kernel, the drivers and the TCP stack and so on, this doesn't necessarily mean that they use unix and unix concepts...
Also they have to maintain compatibility to older devices, so they might just emulate some DOS behaviour or else.

Yes, floppy drives use FAT file system. Finally, it does not matter what kind of file system is behind. Both DOS and Linux deal with FAT fine. Question here is how they deal with it?! DOS for the same FAT uses mapped letter A:\ and Linux mounted device /dev/something. What kind of "dealing" with FAT is used here? Script inside BAT file says "a:\feature2.mid". Strange for Linux system. Strange for me personally I must say. But everything is possible.

[sbrbot]

Finally I'd like very much somebody (that includes me because I'll keep trying with this feature further) to succeed with this "user created demo" functionality. I also have some ideas how could I take advantage of this for my tutorial and music creations.

At the end of the day, I know that my CVP can play MIDI files (even very well :-) ) and that it has internal browser so it can render (web) pages (I don't know yet if they are HTML ones, maybe they are HTMLs but with big restrictions). Demo probably is combination of MIDIs and HTMLs like this attached file shows. But how to make our CVPs (30x/40x) to use our home made Demos?

Just hope that with this thread we will provoke somebody to take more efforts in this in order to find out how to use this functionality (I think undocumented of forgotten one).

[Midi Magic]

Hi

This may , or may not help. I have found an old email which I had printed out concerning the HTLM demo for the cvp3xx.

Rename the batch file to match the model:

yamaha_dmi_30n.bat where n + 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9; and yamaha_dmi_309GP.bat

So in your case try yamaha_dmi_403.bat

Change ALL drive references in the batch file AND in the html files from "A:\" to "F:\" as the floppy drive now seems to be F.

I would love to try it at my local dealer but they don't leave the floppy drives out on show as they would go missing. Also, they get a bit susspect if you start putting strange floppies in their pianos.

Give the above a try and let me know how you get on.

[sbrbot]

Judging from this and other sources, Yamaha used µITron RTOS on their products and currently is on the move to Montevista realtime Linux. (TRON is a generic specification for an Realtime OS developed from japanese Universities, and possibly Montevista also fulfills the specification)


http://www.tron.org/topics/2003/2003-04-e.html