Does the Genos really need both User and Expansion memory

[Oldden]

I know it uses different memory's for different storage uses but is that the best way. My laptop and tablets just use one. They save in different folders/directory's and so on, it seems a lot less complicated. Music is kept in music, photos or videos or documents in others and so on. You can move things around and it still works, all data is on it's hard drive and volatile operating system memory to run it.  all info about everything kept in its one register ,seems so much easier than Yamahas idea of having to keep things in their place they it get lost.

[EileenL]

I think we must remember that Genos is not a computer as such and needs its own system to work properly and it dose work well. Once you get used to it it is a doddle.

[maartenb]

It has a technical reason. It is how Yamaha's tone generators work.

As Eileen said, even though there's a computer in the Genos, its design is completely different than a PC/Mac. The Genos is designed with minimal latency in mind. For example, when you open a file on your PC, it doesn't matter if you have to wait 100 milliseconds. However, if you press a key you will notice the 0.1 second delay immediately.

In a new tone generator (Montage M? Genos 2?), the User and Expansion memory might be one memory. We'll see.


Maarten

[Oldden]

I agree that there must be a technical reason. The Genos has been out for five years so it's getting a bit old in a computer design way. I thought they might be doing it that way to stop it being jailbreaked. It would be nice to plug in a usb drive in any location or a midi keyboard or  typewriter keyboard as my laptops do with no problems. Maybe one day. It's still a great keyboard and I love it.

[pjd]

From the computer architecture point of view, Yamaha's approach to tone generation has similarities to graphics processing units (GPU) which have their own dedicated memory. The tone generators need their own dedicated memory.

As to plugging in a USB QWERTY keyboard or mouse, GENOS (Montage and MODX) has the Linux operating system at its foundation. Thus, GENOS could support standard computer input devices like that. Some clever souls have discovered how to enable a Linux shell by exploiting the debug/test support that is normally disabled when GENOS boots.

I think Yamaha disables direct access to Linux in order to 1. Discourage reverse engineering and 2. Make the product "fool proof." Not that we're fools... 

All the best and enjoy the day -- pj

[rattley]

dod·dle - a very easy task.

I learned a new word today!  Thank you Eileen.  I love the "English" language.  -charley