To Continue this thread as far as I can see it it just a silver version, I must say Gem have had some "mileage" out of that case mold

Kevin

Hello,
I noticed GEM released a 'new' workstation, the wk8LE. Now, it has a new OS. Would it be possible to load into my WK8? I know that the WK8 and WK8SE share the same hardware, so you could flash the new OS in it. But is it also the same with the WK8LE? And would I benefit from it; does the new OS of the WK8LE show improvements?

greetings,
Joost



[This message has been edited by kevind (edited 02-20-2004).]

Hey Kevin,

I'm with ya...I too will try to continue this thread since we have a new player on board, WDMcM.

Hey Dave,

Don't take the following post too seriously, I know I'm dreaming...Just doing out loud, that's all. But hey, maybe you weren't aware of this, I don't know. Oh well, here goes....



Hello all,

Just wondering if this is something I should consider being a WK8 owner. Is there any advantage to changing the OS to the SE version?

Here's an off-the-wall question...What would it take for me to get something changed on my current WK8 (other than buying a different keyboard)? $50, $100, maybe Euros? Well, I'm gonna take a shot here.

I've written before that I discovered a file number limitation per SMF folders. I've got a nice collection of midi files here and I've been loading them into the SMF folders. When I got to number 513 of the first folder, I could no longer place files into SMF1 (it took 513, but no more). Okay I thought, no big deal, I'll start filling up SMF2 and I did. But here's the snag, when you go and do a File Save to the harddrive, the program defaults to the bottom of the SMF1 folder even though I can no longer save there. I'm then required to press the UP key starting in the 500's holding it down till I get to the two dots (. .) representing the root of the drive at the top of the list. Press ENTER on the dots and then I see the rest of the folders. Go from there. You also have to hold the DOWN key to get to the bottom of a list to the first available open space for the new file otherwise you over-write the current file.

So I propose this, the F4 and F5 buttons are not utilized in the SAVE function. Any way of turning those into END UP and END DOWN buttons? Pressing either one brings you to the top of the list or bottom of the list respectively.

Pipe dream? You're probably right. You put that baby to bed four years ago. Oh well, how about a consideration for future boards.

mike

Hello Mike,

Now that you mention it....
Actually an addition was made on the Genesys to allow the Page buttons to scroll a page at a time up and/or down through the list of folder/files. I do like your idea of having 'go to beginning' and 'go to end' buttons available. As you have surmised, it probably won't happen on the WK series. Although I will put in a request for that if a future update takes place.

As for the number of MIDI files you have saved to the HD, WOW! I was unaware of the file number limitation of 513 files within each SMF folder. Thanks for the info.

FYI. Another feature of the Genesys system is called DATA BASE. The data base will search the HD for song files and display them alphabetically by song name or by artist. You also have the option of searching by name, artist or file number. This makes things a lot easier when taking requests, etc.

Finally, I see no reason to try and load the SE operating system into you WK-8. if I come up with a reason, I will let you know.

Best Regards,

Dave

a) it is just cool.

b) hardware test features more options

c) you have the new SE perfomances from Aard van Asseldonk instead of the standard WK8 perfs. Also there are new RASS styles loaded in the flash option. Unfortunatly, I haven't got the chance to get my hands on the RASS samples wich should be there also, plus the SE piano sounds.

These SE sounds are 6 or 7 new sounds, mostly piano / wurlitzer and some organ as I remember. I now have these sound entries in my memory, I can select them; the only thing is that the samples are not loaded into the memory.

I found it interesting enough to keep it.

I thought we were talking a bout the new WK8LE os??

Hello all,

Well, it looks like I owe Kevind an apology...Sorry I kinda steered this one off course just a bit. When I read your original post saying, "you could flash the new OS in it", it sparked my interest again. I had asked earlier if I could/should upgrade the OS in my WK8 to WK8SE-style but didn't receive a response.

Now thanks to Dave for saying it should work and thanks to JoostMerema for saying it does work, quite well as a matter of fact. I went to the GEM site, tried to download the WK8SE OS but got an error message when clicking on the link. I'll keep trying. I noticed that MediaSoft doesn't have that OS stored on their site.

And finally, thanks to Dave for listening and responding. For sure the file limitation was 513 in the SMF1 folder. They are all Tune 1000 files so they probably average 50K in size a piece. Didn't know if it was a number thing or size thing. I didn't even try to push the limit in SMF2, I stopped right around 500 and started in SMF3.

Would the SCSI interface had made this task easier? Could I have loaded these files right off another computer through the SCSI card?

Thanks again to all and now back to Kevind's original question...Can he load the WK8LE OS into his WK8?

mike