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Thread: Mamba Black 1.90 now available

  1. #21
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    no unless you can or want to write a driver. The 'open hardware' concept of Mamba means they (medialas) will provide information for you to write your own drivers for their software. This is why Mamba has such a wide hardware base avail. But to be honest I dont know why anyone would want to port Mamba to FB3 when the Pango software will blow Mamba out of the water.

    Rob
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  2. #22
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    Cool

    Mamba Black *does* include a driver for the Pangolin QM-2000 board, but not for the FB3 or the older QM-32. There's nothing preventing someone from developing a driver for either of those other controllers though.

    I've actually run my QM-2000 with my copy of Mamba Black, and it works flawlessly. But as Rob mentioned, once you've got Pangolin you probably don't need Mamba Black anymore. (Eh - I've still got my copy though! Go figure...)

    Adam

  3. #23
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    Yes Adam I should have mentioned the QM2000 support for MB - obviously slipped my mind. Reading my post again makes it sound like I'm knocking MB - which I'm not as such. Mamba is a great product that has been blighted by coding problems that have made it cranky to say the least. As I have stated before I love the interface of it and think its pretty intuitive - improvements could be made but even a monkey can quickly grasp what to do. What I suppose I would have been better saying is that the software, backup, and resource for Pango is far more extensive. Ultimately Pango will be more powerful than MB and do stuff MB can't do but that is not to say MB is lacking. Until LA freak came out as far as I was concerned MB was the best value for money on the market and in one way still has an edge - and that is that its licence allows use in a commercial enviroment.
    However the bigger purpose for LA F I think is - as discussed in another thread - to get the goodwill and service that Bill provides which will get people onboard with Pango so as they progress and decide they wanna go commercial they are already in the comfort of the Pango fold.

    Rob
    If you need to ask the question 'whats so good about a laser' - you won't understand the answer.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Laserists do it by the nanometre.

    Stanwax Laser is a Corporate Member of Ilda

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  4. #24
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    Rob, I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I, too, considered Mamba Black to be the best deal around at one point. (Which is why I bought the software and was ready to buy the DAC late last year.) But I was ignorant of the FB3 from Pangolin back then. Once I learned about that setup, yeah, Mamba had to take a back-seat to it. (Of course, in the mean time I landed a QM-32 system, which put all thoughts of Mamba out of my mind for many months afterward!)

    Still, Mamba Black was (and continues to be) some very nice software - despite the bugs. I was quite happy with it when I bought it. I think that's one of the reasons why I still have it; I like the interface.

    In fact, even though I've upgraded to a QM-2000 now, I have to admit that there are parts of the Mamba Black interface that I still prefer over Pangolin's Showtime. To me it was easier to learn how to use Mamba. Now, there's no doubt that the Pangolin software is *much* more powerful, but it did take me a good while to learn how to use it correctly. (And I'm still learning!) I was grateful for the Pangolin DVD tutorial, but even so it's tricky...

    Eh - if Mamba Black and the Easylase USB controller were ever released at, say, a price point of $350 for the whole package, then they'd really be able to compete with the Pangolin LA Freak kit. But with the Pangolin kit priced at just 500 bucks, and Mamaba Black + Easylase costing north of $800 at this point... Well, I just don't think it's a smart choice anymore. I know that they've been working hard to squash the bugs in Mamba, but as you said, Pangolin also has a great reputation for quality.

    By the way, there is a solution for people that want to do commercial work with the Pangolin FB3 controller. Instead of buying the LA Freak kit for $500, they can buy the FB3 Evaluation kit for $595. That kit comes with everything the LA Freak package does (plus the TTL input daughterboard), and it does *not* have any restrictions on commercial use.

    But for the folks that are already running a Mamba Black setup, it's good that Medialas is still supporting them.

    Adam

  5. #25
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    I got the LA FREAK evaluation kit and I am GAGGING to make some shows...It's still gonna be at least a month till I can ...

  6. #26
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    There is another plus point with MB, you can compile your shows on any PC where with the Pango QM32 and QM2000 you can only work on the shows on the PC that has the card in, which can be a bit of a pain.

    Jim

  7. #27
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    Good point Jim
    I do like this feature though as discussed it may be one reason Mamba has been hacked.

    Rob
    If you need to ask the question 'whats so good about a laser' - you won't understand the answer.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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    Stanwax Laser is a Corporate Member of Ilda

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  8. #28
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    Cool

    I thought you needed the Dongle inserted to both save your work *AND* to display shows with Mamba.?. So you needed the dongle plugged in pretty much all the time. (Hell, I always left it plugged in anyway.)

    Adam

  9. #29
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    yes Adam you do but the dongle is easier than wiring up the DAC card and so is more transferable to other pcs to work from when away from your projector.

    Rob
    If you need to ask the question 'whats so good about a laser' - you won't understand the answer.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Laserists do it by the nanometre.

    Stanwax Laser is a Corporate Member of Ilda

    Stanwax Laser main distributor of First Contact in UK - like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/FirstContactPolymerCleaner
    www.photoniccleaning.co.uk

  10. #30
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    The Rockey4 dongle is only tiny, to be honest I tend to put it in my wallet when I'm not using it as it's the only way I'm not likely to lose it.
    I work on any shows on my laptop and then put them on CD to use at the disco.

    Jim

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