BSS FDS 355 firmare update issue ( or not )

R

Riley Casey

Sophomore
Jan 12, 2011
337
37
28
WDC in the USA
www.espsound.com
The BSS user form seems to be on strike at the moment so I'm going to post this of the reservation for anyone who might have some experience.

I have recently acquired a couple of FDS355s and an FDS388. In poking at them I discovered that one had older firmware than the other and set about to update it. I inquired on the forum about the firmware updater and received a very polite pointer to the file off line from the forum. I hooked up the serial port to my USB to Serial port adaptor ( which works quite well with our 336 & 366 units ), fired up my copy of Windows XP within Parrallels on my Mac, opened the firmware updater file and proceeded to apparently change the firmware to the current version. The software progress bar progressed, the dialog box said all was good, the expected responses.

Then I saw the post that I pasted below. ( a locked post thus the cut and paste job )

In light of the note about Soundbench not seeing the serial port in any OS greater than Win 98 have I hosed the firmware in this 355 or does that not apply to the firmware update software - or has the virtual machine software some how magically end run the serial port access issue?


>> Dan Lynch ( BSS forum guy ) wrote ...

"That's pretty funny, actually. Since you're talking about a 355, you won't have any trouble finding a laptop with a serial connection because you don't want a new one. The only way to control a 355 from a laptop is to run Soundbench (info here - download here) which will only work on Windows 3.11, 95, or 98! Since you're a mac user, you can probably find a Win98 emulator somewhere. PC users can download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 for free and install Win98 on that. Configuring the network settings on 98 can be a pain in the neck, so I just keep my old Toshiba Satellite sitting here with Win98 on it.

Dan

Note: Before everyone emails me about it; yes, I am aware that you can run Soundbench under Windows NT, 2000, XP, etc. If all you care about is launching it and admiring the sexy GUI, go for it. On the other hand, if you want to actually communicate with a 355, you're going to have to run 3.11, 95, or 98 so Soundbench can see the serial port.
 
Re: BSS FDS 355 firmare update issue ( or not )

You've left out one piece of information - did the firmware update work? What does the processor say?

In every situation I've been involved in, firmware updates are pass/fail. Either they work perfectly, or it fails completely. If you could select the serial port, run through the program, and after completion your processor now shows the new version number, you're fine. If there's a problem, you'll know about it.
 
Re: BSS FDS 355 firmare update issue ( or not )

Ahhh... therein lies the rub. A big part of why I am trying to get this FDS355 to talk to a computer is that it's display has gone bad. It came preprogrammed for the systems it's original owners used. They had a pair midied together and simply used the front panel of one to load programs into the other. They were not terribly computer savy to begin with. As it is I can't see any data in the control window and now i've discovered in further reading that I can't talk to the processor without switching the unit to RS232 from MIDI - something that apparently can only be done in the control window. I suspect that this box is going to be a parts unit shortly.


TJ Cornish said:
You've left out one piece of information - did the firmware update work? What does the processor say?

In every situation I've been involved in, firmware updates are pass/fail. Either they work perfectly, or it fails completely. If you could select the serial port, run through the program, and after completion your processor now shows the new version number, you're fine. If there's a problem, you'll know about it.
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