[sdiy] J-Wire keyboards

[thx1138]

On 1/28/10 6:37 AM, "Ian Smith" <taciturn_unquiet at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Hey all,
> 
> This came up in my previous thread. What is a J-wire keyboard? How does it
> work? From what little information I can find, it looks like a single buss
> keyboard not a scanning matrix. Does it work with reed switches like Ray
> Wilson's single buss keyboard or is it something else entirely?
> 
> -Ian (have a keyboard but no guts for it) Smith
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Hi,

The J-Wire keyboards were designed by Pratt-Read for E-Mu Systems back in
the Early to Mid-1970's.

Tom Oberheim was working with Dave Rossum back in those days on an analog
design for Multi-channel that later became a Digital Scanned design.

E-Mu patented the Microprocessor scanned keyboard around 1976 and was
licensed to Sequential Circuits, Oberheim, Shultz Sound Design and others.

It was based upon a Zilog Z-80 MCU and I have still all of my code and
design info somewhere in my mass of documents.

Hope that this helps. I believe ARP and Moog also used a variation of this
analog version of keyboard design.

Best regards,

Terry Shultz