Edirol CG-8 Repair Guide: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:55, 15 May 2025

Overview

The Edirol CG-8 is a "visual synthesiser" made by Roland around 2005. It sits at the boundary between hardware and software VJing, and its form factor reflects this. While fitting into a classic 2000s-era VJ hardware rig with, say, an Edirol P10 video sampler and an Edirol V4 video mixer, it is basically an off-the-shelf computer running custom software with a custom control surface. As such, it should be quite repairable, so long as you have access to the software and can source some original components or compatible replacements. It is our goal at the Computer Arts Archive CIC in Leicester to keep the CG-8 alive as part of our Live Multinmedia collection.

If you can support this project, especially if you can supply knowledge or spare parts, get in touch. If this information has proved useful, please consider making a financial donation to the Computer Arts Archive CIC This document is a work in progress maintained by Sean Clark.

Externals

Internals

Main Power Board

Notes:

Power Distribution Board

Notes:

PC Motherboard

Power Switch / Input

MIDI Board

Disk Drive / IDE Board

USB Control Surface

Computer Hardware

VIA EPIA M PC Motherboard

The CG-8 uses a VIA EPIA M mini ITX PC motherboard produced in the early to mid-2000s. The model inside the CG8 is an M10000G. It uses the VIA CLE266 chipset and comes with 512MB RAM in its single UDIMM memory slot and a 2.5-inch 40 GB hard drive, connected via IDE. The Retro Web provides comprehensive information about the board and notes that, like many computers of its era, it is prone to "faulty or leaking electrolytic capacitors".

Notes:

512Mb RAM

The CG-8's RAM is in the form of a single 512 MB DDR UDIMM PC2100 chip. According to the user manual, the motherboard has a maximum RAM size of 1 GB.

40Gb Hard Drive

Notes: The 2.5-inch IDE connector is not well-suited to regularly plugging and unplugging while testing. It's easy to bend and misalign pins. SATA is much more robust. I therefore use an IDE to SATA cable and use Hitachi 40GB SATA HD drives. I have tried an SSD drive, but so far, I have had no luck making this work. See the instructions below to copy your hard drive to a new disk.

Software

Hard Hat Linux

VMWM

CG8 Application

Disk Images

Boot to CG8
Boot to Console
Experimental

Diagnostics

1) Before doing any work on the CG-8, you should back up and clone the internal hard drive. It is strongly recommended that you don't do any diagnostic work with your original hard drive in place. 2) Be electrically safe.. Some areas of the CG-8 internals carry high voltage, even when the power is off. particularly the power boards. 3) Do not be tempted to plug/unplug anything while the power to the CG-8 is on. Doing so is likely to cause damage.

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 The Edirol CG-8 is a "visual synthesiser" made by Roland around 2005. It sits at the boundary between hardware and software VJing, and its form factor reflects this. While fitting into a classic 2000s-era VJ hardware rig with, say, an Edirol P10 video sampler and an Edirol V4 video mixer, it is basically an off-the-shelf computer running custom software with a custom control surface. As such, it <strong>should</strong> be quite repairable, so long as you have access to the software and can source some original components or compatible replacements. It is our goal at the [https://www.computer-arts-archive.com Computer Arts Archive CIC] in Leicester to keep the CG-8 alive as part of our Live Multinmedia collection.
-If you can support this project, especially if you can supply knowledge or spare parts, get in touch. If this information has proved useful, please consider making a financial donation to the Computer Arts Archive CIC This document is a work in progress maintained by Sean Clark.
+If you can support this project, especially if you can supply knowledge or spare parts, get in touch. If this information has proved useful, please consider making a financial donation to the Computer Arts Archive CIC This document is a work in progress maintained by [[User:Seancuttlefish|Sean Clark.]]
 ==Externals==