All Blog Entries

• How Does Ada's Memory Safety Compare Against Rust?

  2025.01.17
  A comparison of how well Rust and Ada prevent the most common memory-related software errors.
  Tagged as:

  • Ada
  • Programming

• Introduction to Reverse-Engineering Vintage Synth Firmware

  2024.03.18
  A gentle introduction to reverse-engineering vintage synthesiser ROMs using the Ghidra disassembler.
  Tagged as:

  • DX7
  • Musical Equipment
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Synthesizers

• The Identity of The Sanctimonious Kid

  2024.02.27
  Exploring the historic background of Jack Black's 'You Can't Win', and investigating the identity of The Sanctimonious Kid.
  Tagged as:

  • Non-Technical

• How Far Back in Time Can I Take My Website's Design

  2023.05.07
  A look back through web-browser history, as I test my site against the browsers of the past.
  Tagged as:

  • Programming
  • The Small Web

• Hacking the Yamaha DX9 To Turn It Into a DX7

  2023.04.10
  A brief account of hacking the Yamaha DX9's firmware ROM to make its functionality more closely match the DX7.
  Tagged as:

  • DX7
  • Musical Equipment
  • Programming
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Synthesizers

• How the Yamaha FM Synth Cassette Interface Works

  2022.09.28
  A technical overview of how the cassette interface used in Yamaha's FM synthesisers encodes, and decodes patch data for external storage.
  Tagged as:

  • DX7
  • Musical Equipment
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Synthesizers

• Yamaha DX7 Official Technical Analysis

  2022.03.20
  A chance discovery on eBay has surfaced some of Yamaha's original technical documentation for the DX7 synthesiser.
  Tagged as:

  • DX7
  • Musical Equipment
  • Synthesizers

• Yamaha DX7 Firmware ROM Disassembly

  2021.12.25
  A brief update regarding the reverse-engineering of the Yamaha DX7's firmware ROM.
  Tagged as:

  • DX7
  • Musical Equipment
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Synthesizers

• Yamaha DX7 Technical Analysis

  2021.04.23
  An introductory technical analysis of the Yamaha DX7, detailing some of the known information about the synthesiser’s engineering.
  Tagged as:

  • DX7
  • Musical Equipment
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Synthesizers

• Giving Ada a Chance

  2021.01.13
  An in-depth look at the Ada programming language, its history, and what it has to offer developers today. As well as a fistful of my humble opinions.
  Tagged as:

  • Ada
  • Programming

• Casio CZ-101 Review

  2020.09.01
  A review of the Casio CZ-101 synthesizer, from the charitable perspective of someone with experience in ugly, digital noise: An industrial musician.
  Tagged as:

  • Musical Equipment
  • Synthesizers