2026-03-23
What happened
Found the old PEEQ tarball from 2003 and brought it into git. The Pure Data source is remarkably intact — peeq.pd, row.pd, rowlogic.pd — three files, 999 lines total, and the whole architecture is legible. Clock driven by metro, pattern data in float arrays, 8 patterns × 8 rows × 16 steps addressed by offset math. The changelog goes back to September 2003.
The thing that still holds up: keyboard-first design. qwerty row for steps 1–8, asdfghjk for steps 9–16. [ and ] move row focus. Macros on keys 1–4 (quarter notes, eighth notes, 2&4, user-defined). Numpad +/- switch patterns without resetting the clock — which is what Ableton later called legato mode, shipped in 2003 on a Dell laptop in a breakdancing club.
Wrote up a plan doc and README to think through what a port or revival would look like.
Tweet draft
found my old 2003 Pure Data step sequencer — keyboard-driven, no mouse, legato pattern switching before Ableton had a name for it. thinking about what a browser port would look like
commit: 8cbfd83