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Hello everyone. We have a special treat for you: a new blogpost that is a audiovisual whirlwind tour through a neglected era of music technology. It's easily the longest, but also the best-researched and most fun thing we've ever written: https://hikari.noyu.me/blog/2025-08-24-around-the-general-midi-world-in-12-pianos.html
@hikari Reading through it now :3
Found the way the synths were introduced as being almost entirely Roland and brain naturally did the "categories" = "genders" and this image formed of its own accord:
@hikari Looking at the photo of the Yamaha PSR-350 and you're really not kidding about near-identical keyboards popping up in every decade, it's very nostalgic.
It probably wasn't that exact model, but I remember something near-identical to it from primary school - including the floppy drive and the Song - Style - Music Database - Voice text on the top
I think the keyboard I had (and eventually charity shop'd) as a kid was fairly similiar too, minus the floppy drive and with less instruments and settings; while the Yamaha keyboards at secondary school were a bit fancier, but also not something I really got much chance to use
I definitely remember class disruptions from the "DJ" button :P
@hokaze We were amazed at how similar the thing we bought was to whatever we used in school… not just the Portable Grand and DJ buttons and Mission: Impossible theme, but also like, the Yamaha Education Suite (Y.E.S.) and the screen with the permanent clefs and stave markings, and surely many other things too. Possibly even the screen colour, but it could have been un-backlit for all we know at this point.