What's the smallest known platform for Max/MSP?

I am also interested in this.

I found this pda, not sure if it's good enough but someone else might?
http://www.dspdesign.com/products/product_detail?product_id=110

Chris

I am very interested in this as well. I
would love to be able to travel and work
on patches. I did find this...
http://gige.xdv.org/pda/

Looks like it is still a work in progress.

Anthony

----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Hipgrave
Date: Friday, October 12, 2007 2:03 pm
Subject: [maxmsp] Re: What's the smallest known platform for Max/MSP?

>
> I am also interested in this.
>
> I found this pda, not sure if it's good enough but someone else might?
> http://www.dspdesign.com/products/product_detail?product_id=110
>
> Chris
>

Hi Sarah,

I would investigate pure data a bit further. PD runs on Linux, and there
are some incredibly microscopic Linux boxes out there.

Andreas.

Also, check out fit-pc:
http://www.fit-pc.com/

small.
fanless.
built-in audio interface.
cheap.

Last time I saw him perform, Bradford Reed was running Max on a small embedded PC for MSP processing. Perhaps he says what he uses on his site or will chime in on the list.

Hans-Christoph Steiner showed me a Linux PDA running PureData. Processing apps will run on many phones. If I were you I'd check out what they can do. Good luck!

Thanks for all this - very useful and intriguing. I think the only option is to buy something cheap and cheerful, as a first attempt at making something tiny, and have a go. I hadn't thought about the Pure Data + Linux route. The smallness makes that very tempting but I'm slightly concerned I'll then be delving into three things that I haven't tried before, instead of just one.

For those of you interested in this issue: I'd like a small computer so I can embed Max/MSP-based systems inside objects that I perform with live, without having to worry about hooking things up to external computers, finding time to setup on stage and so on. Just to give you an idea of what I mean, one example is Clara 2.0, my theremin playing robot doll, about the size of a human baby.I'd love to get Clara 2.0 working as a stand-alone device - like an old-school (i.e. 18th-century) automata where everything is contained in the body - or tucked into the automata's box.

Anyway, I don't know if any of this makes sense to other people or you now think I'm completely potty. But I'm definitely going to take the plunge and buy...I'm not sure what yet but one of the suggestions here.

Thanks again

Sarah

Well this is kind of the same idea i've had. However, i still wrestling with the idea that you will end up paying a lot for what essentially could be achieved with connecting a MIDI controller to a laptop. Is it worth paying a good few hundred for a box which only hosts one patch?

Chris

Quote: Sarah Angliss wrote on Sat, 13 October 2007 03:49
----------------------------------------------------
> For those of you interested in this issue: I'd like a small computer so I can embed Max/MSP-based systems inside objects that I perform with live, without having to worry about hooking things up to external computers, finding time to setup on stage and so on. Just to give you an idea of what I mean, one example is Clara 2.0, my theremin playing robot doll, about the size of a human baby.I'd love to get Clara 2.0 working as a stand-alone device - like an old-school (i.e. 18th-century) automata where everything is contained in the body - or tucked into the automata's box.
>
> Anyway, I don't know if any of this makes sense to other people or you now think I'm completely potty. But I'm definitely going to take the plunge and buy...I'm not sure what yet but one of the suggestions here.
>
> Thanks again
>
> Sarah
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------

Hello Chris

Well, those are some very good points. But to be honest, as a player of theremins and other analogue instruments, I'm not a great fan of midi. I know it's an obvious thing to say - but I don't like my music quantised up into neat little pitch or temporal chunks. I enjoy all the sloppiness in between two disparate sounds - in my mind, that's a huge part of what makes the music I'm into seem interesting. And that's something I try to replicate with my automata and installations, at least some of the time.

Anyway, sorry if this is now veering off-topic but in my mind this seems relevant to the issue of how to deploy Max/MSP. Chris - I wonder if this chimes with what you were thinking:

Personally, I'd love to be able to hand over a complete, tangeable musical artefact to someone and say 'there you go - play this', rather than, 'there you go, plug this into an external Mac, PC or whatever and then you can start playing'. And I'd love to perform with such an artefact myself. I think it might be easier to encourage some non-techy musicians to work with such a device. It's closer to the old paradigm of a musical instrument as a stand-alone machine, with a limited range of functions, which has been designed, ergonomically, to enable the user to perform a certain expressive tasks (e.g. strumming at different intensities).

I also have a hunch that interactive artefacts seem more magical if we can at least half-convince the user that the actions aren't all down to computers. That's because computers are so familiar now. At the very least, I want to dump the screen and the big box that everything is connected to so people don't fix on the familiar. Of course I'm not savvy enough to make really interesting things that do ditch the computer entirely - and I really enjoy working with the functions that software like Max/MSP have to offer. So getting a small Max/MSP-capable computer, that I can embed in a tangeable artefact, incorporating physical sensors and actuators, is an attempt to have my cake and eat it.

In hiding the computer, I suppose I'm stepping into the realms of deception here - but then I've been talking quite a bit to magicians recently and have come to realise a little bit of deception and/or misdirection can be a wonderful thing. I made a creepy little Max/MSP controlled puppet show recently where I (semi) hid the computer. The strangest and most satisfying thing was how curious people of all ages were about 'who was working it'. The kids would look up and see if they could see some people hidden in the box. You don't get that so much when users interact with sounds and graphics, delivered on a computer, even if they are far more sophisticated.

...anyway, I realise that none of these ideas are new. But I suppose I was hoping that recent advances in miniature computers might enable me to have my little go at reinventing the wheel. I completely take your point though that it's a big hit on the wallet, just to make a one-off machine!

Best wishes

Sarah

(Spacedog UK)

in this case it sounds like you need to look into pd (which can be embedded on a chip, as mentioned) or something like the arduino device.

max needs a full-fledged computer w/ either os x or xp to run.