| Speed | 3.5795 MHz |
| Memory | 32 KB |
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Flash is required to use this audio.
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| Release Date: |
1/1/1984 |
| Manufacturer: |
Yamaha
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Donated By:
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Jim Hassett |
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Microsoft rarely fails (after 6 or 7 retries anyway) but it lost big when
betting on the MSX standard. The ‘Japanese Are Coming’
machines failed to make a big impact in North America but they
did provide some useful software. This Yamaha model was
specifically designed for musicians and included a built in MIDI port
(MIDI is Musical Instrument Digital Interface) . Running a Zilog Z80
processor at 3.58 MHz, the 32 KB of RAM was not enough to run
some of the more demanding applications, but you could connect
a floppy drive and some very interesting effects could be achieved
with the optional magnetic card reader.
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User Comments |
Charles on Monday, December 20, 2010
Ah yes, the Yamaha. I composed very actively on this machine from 1988 to 1994 (three tapes of original compositions recorded - through MIDI interface - onto cassette tapes). Some enterprising third-party people produced various musical effect sounds, and you could compose up to 8 tracks at a time. I dismantled the machine in 1994 and have not tried to run it since, but I have all the parts in their original boxes. It was a real boon for people who wanted to compose but could not really play an instrument very well - you could enter note-by-note and easily delete when things went wrong. It's real failing was the printer interface - it could not print a usable score most of the time.
You can hear some of the Yamaha's work on the UTS Twig Tape website utunes.utschools.ca - UTS had a music studio with a Yamaha from 1986 until the early 1990s at least.
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 "Yamaha CX5M Music Computer MSX")