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What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard

chipweinberger.com

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Re: What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard

#4
post #3

What was the biggest mistake you made in the early days that almost killed the business?

Spending too long on the firmware. I almost ran out of runway. I should have cut features faster. And I should have built the firmware cross platform so I could run it my local machine. Every compile + flash loop took 2+ minutes.

Re: What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard

#5

I'll be sticking around in the comments so feel free to ask questions. AMA!

The number that stuck out was 200K lines of code. Can you expand on why so much code had to be written and which parts were the longest (time and/or code) and hardest bits?

Re: What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard

#6
post #5

I'll be sticking around in the comments so feel free to ask questions. AMA!

The number that stuck out was 200K lines of code. Can you expand on why so much code had to be written and which parts were the longest (time and/or code) and hardest bits?

The app is about 85K lines: device connectivity, first-time setup, syncing, MIDI playback and visualization, library management, audio/video export, and OTA workflows.

The firmware is about 110K lines: MIDI recording + streaming, USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, web APIs, storage, OTA updates, diagnostics, security, peripherals, provisioning, and an embedded web interface.

There’s a lot required to make a full-featured product.

Re: What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard

#8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number that stuck out was 200K lines of code. Can you expand on why so much code had to be written and which parts were the longest (time and/or code) and hardest bits?

The app is about 85K lines: device connectivity, first-time setup, syncing, MIDI playback and visualization, library management, audio/video export, and OTA workflows. The firmware is about 110K lines: MIDI recording + streaming, USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, web APIs, storage, OTA updates, diagnostics, security, peripherals, provisioning, and an embedded web interface. There’s a lot required to make a full-featured product…

This seems like an incredibly large codebase. Did you use an existing RTOS or something similar for this product, or was this all hand rolled?

Re: What I learned selling 2,500 MIDI recorders: Hardware is not so hard

#9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number that stuck out was 200K lines of code. Can you expand on why so much code had to be written and which parts were the longest (time and/or code) and hardest bits?

The app is about 85K lines: device connectivity, first-time setup, syncing, MIDI playback and visualization, library management, audio/video export, and OTA workflows. The firmware is about 110K lines: MIDI recording + streaming, USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, web APIs, storage, OTA updates, diagnostics, security, peripherals, provisioning, and an embedded web interface. There’s a lot required to make a full-featured product…

Yeesh, please tell me you didn't write all of that yourself. Which uC is it targeting, and which language?
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