Making transcription easier

I’ve been “distracted” from transcription for a week now by questions surrounding analysis of code between compiles. I don’t think this was a bad distraction, but I need to keep transcribing.

Right now, my data is on Minidisc. This is OK, except it makes it a real pain to do transcription–the MD player I have (an MZ-R700) doesn’t have the ability to accept input from a footswitch. This means that hands-free transcription (that is, keeping my hands on the keyboard) isn’t possible. So, I can either

1. Do all of my transcription with ViaVoice. This works well enough, but sometimes I need the keyboard.
2. Transfer the audio from the MD to the Mac first, and then go about doing the transcription. Now, I can control playback from the keyboard (with either the right software, or writing some of my own).
3. Hack the unit to accept footswitch input.

Of course, I hadn’t considerd the last option until I stumbled on a post from 1998 in the MD-community discussion archives. This eventually led me to the TechDis accessibility archives, and further searches for footswitches in the UK. These are hard to find, ya know? At least, I think it is.

Then, I started looking explicitly for hacks on the MZ-R700, having stumbled upon mention of them in Google previously. This led me to a tempting hack, but there is no need right now to destroy my only MD player. There was something very useful in this page, though.

Function Value |<< 1000 ohms Sound 2300 ohms >>| 3640 ohms Pause 5160 ohms Stop 7100 ohms Vol – 8400 ohms Vol + 9900 ohms Rpt/Ent (aka Track Mark) 11900 ohms Display 16700 ohms

Now, these are the resistance values across pins 2 and 4 for the MZ-R900 remote. This remote is compatible with my MZ-R700; perhaps, then, the resistances are similar (or close) for the 700. If not, I certainly can figure this out with some straight-forward experimentation.

Time to make some friends over in physics or electronics. With just a little bit of work, I think I can wire in a footswitch with the right amount of resistance to pause and unpause my MD. That would make life a good bit simpler.

(I haven’t figured out why I include that from time to time… perhaps just because the button to do it is there?)