Yes, you're in for a real treat if you've never worked with any of these first attempts at analog synth with digital control. Your Poly-800 may or may not have an internal lithium cell for memory backup. If there is one, it's dead. Putting 6 "C" cells in the battery compartment will allow it to save patches. Otherwise, all patches will be lost when it is turned off.
As for loading the factory patches, it's a .wav file (audio). It's encoded data, so it sounds like a modem, and needs to be played into the From Tape jack on the back of the Poly-800. Some people do this directly from a computer audio out. Some people burn it onto an audio CD and use a CD Walkman to play it into the Poly-800. Originally, the patch data came on a cassette tape and any cassette player could be use. To get the Poly-800 ready to accept data, move the switches on the back to Tape Enable and Program Write Enable, then press "Load" (the "1" button). Play the wav data file into From Tape jack, and wait for "Good" or "Err" to show up in the display. Volume levels are a bit tricky to get a good load.
Aside from all that, you should still be able to test the rest of the synth by going through all the parameters and setting them to something reasonable. When the memory is empty, the most obvious reasons for no sound are Attack time way too long, Sustain way too low, or Filter Cutoff way too low. Unfortunately, a completely uninitialized memory chip can have completely out-of-range values for some parameters, so you may see some strange things in the display as you go through the parameters.
Don B.
--- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, Michael Hawkins <korgpolyex800@...> wrote:
>
> Well, you need to get the tape dump audio and send it to the Poly-800. You can
> get that tape dump file right here from the files section for the Poly-800.
>
> But you can also download this excel spreadsheet and enter in the first patch
> manually.
>
> http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/8OhSTMpTnYDZbBN7CjJfyOSnlBIEcjhTBrYBDKtnoI8ynsSpY6HRV_iUcnp_kEojXfuAPeiTbdpVFbgqPRgD/1%29%20Poly-800/Patches%20and%20patch%20dumps/Poly-800%2011-88.xls
>
>
> You will need to learn how to enter a patch manually, starting with pressing the
> Prog/Para button to get into parameter edit mode.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Mike.
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: soviet_bot <soviet_bot@...>
> To: korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Fri, July 30, 2010 11:02:58 AM
> Subject: [korgpolyex] Re: just bought poly-800, but wont work... suggestions?
>
>
>
>
> --- In korgpolyex@yahoogroups.com, Malte Rogacki <gacki@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I didn't watch it to the very end; however one quick question: Did you load
> > any sounds into it before trying it out?
> >
> > The first revision of the Poly-800 used the batteries in the bottom to
> > buffer the memory contents as well; once those batteries are removed (or
> > will get too low) the Poly-800 will "forget" any settings; you're basically
> > ending with a "blank slate" (and not with some kind of "init" sound, to
> > make things worse).
> >
> > So please go to the files section, download the factory patches and load
> > them into the Poly first; then try again.
> >
>
> and how would i load them? there were no batteries. still are no batteries. lol.
> but yeah. i found the bin file.. but what do i do with it? as i said... i'm used
> to messing with moogs, hit the power switch and play. so i have no idea what to
> do with this thing :P
>