The Mux

The main mux is the huge black thing in the AV rack, it routes video to different places, and also has analogue TV demodulators in. The main mux is controlled by an outboard box which sits on the directors/vision mixers desk.

Functions

  • 32 input to 4 output matrix
  • 2 Nicam stereo tuners

Faults & unknowns

2 composite inputs to the matrix are dead.

Red buttons have unknown function.

Controller pinouts

1 +5V power
2 0V ground
3 32x4 crosspoint switch control lines
4 consisting of a clock (rising edge trigger)
5 CS (active-low) and Data
6 NC
7 Station Tuner control (I2C Data)
8 Net Tuner control (I2C Data)
9 Station/Net Tuner common control line (I2C Clock)

explanation of operation

This was originally based around a PIC16F84 with an 8MHz crystal containing code written by Rob Sprowson. The hex file as loaded into the PIC can be found here[[1]] whilst a partial disassembly of it can be found here [[2]]. Also available is a disassembled version of the ROM code [[3]] from within the BBC micro that used to be part of Schedula.

A new PIC, a PIC18F2455 using a 20MHz crystal, has replaced this PIC through use of an extra 'daughter' board. This change in PIC was to allow easier coding, using C instead of assembler, and to provide USB capabilites. The source code can be found in Main Mux Source Code.

Six 74HC595 shift registers are daisy chanined together to form a single large serial-to-parallel converter to control all of the LEDs and the buzzer. The data is shifted in in the following order, with high to turn the LED/buzzer on:

Shift register output, leftmost exits chip first
Bottom Row Right LED . . . Bottom Row Left LED 2nd Row Right LED . . . 2nd Row Left LED 3rd Row Right LED . . . 3rd Row Left LED Top Row Right Green LED . . . Top Row Left Green LED Mux4 LED Mux3 LED Mux2 LED Mux1 LED Obey LED Not Used Not Used Not Used Buzzer 7-seg Top 7-seg Top Right 7-seg Bottom Right 7-seg Bottom 7-seg Bottom Left 7-seg Middle 7-seg Top Left