[sdiy] Future SYNTH-DIY/breadboard

[Rainer Buchty]

>I'm fixing up a '70s analog synth and an '80s digital synth at the 
>moment. If they were SMT I probably wouldn't go near them, true.

But that's not a problem of SMT per se, but rather that there is nothing 
fixable in any newer machine.

The 70s and early 80s machines were basically made from off-the-shelf 
parts with some dedicated stuff like CEMs/SSMs. Later, the first 
fully-custom sound chips appeared, and soon after the machines were more 
or less based on company-specific parts with a little bit of glue logic. 
ROM and CPU were "fusioned" into microcontrollers, and -- of course -- 
the ROM couldn't be read out anymore, or doing so would at least require 
some major effort.

*That* is the reason why one wouldn't want to repair anything past 
~85, because it's basically impossible without access to original 
parts and/or detailed descriptions of those parts which might enable
cloning.

Rainer