Talk:Coupland Digital Music Synthesizer

This article was nominated for deletion on 18 May 2007. The result of the discussion was Keep.

I altered the page after verify with Rick that the second version indeed did use a TMS-9900 microprocessor. Being new at this, I forgot to put the comments in the edit summary, for which I apologize. --John Moore

Everything I read pertaining to the this device leads to information about a hoax or farce.

1 - Synth history timeline. References to subject Mark Vail mentions vaporware/farce

2 - eBay brochure link #1 mentioning hoax

3 - eBay brochure link #2 mentioning hoax

You be the judge... Cheezwzl (talk) 20:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can bear personal witness that this synth was no hoax. I spent a semester recording on one of the prototypes at the University of Arizona in 1979. It didn't look anything like the fancy performance version in the brochures - it was a 19" rack full of wire-wrapped boards with a keyboard, a terminal, and a couple of 8" floppy drives attached. The one I used DID have the TI-9900 chip in it. I recently unearthed a recording I made on it, and I know I have some photos *somewhere*. Truly a magnificent instrument that would have pushed the whole field of electronic music ahead by YEARS if it had made it to production (IMHO). Ishkabbible69 (talk) 05:03, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised at the assertion that this was a hoax. While it was not a commercial success, it was shown at a music industry show (NAMM) and written up in a journal. Various folks worked on this, along with Coupland, for 6 or 7 years. Jmooreaz (talk) 23:56, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edited to show that the synthesizer now resides at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ (see ref). Mesodude (talk) 01:32, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One more comment re the "hoax" comments above. At the show, the device failed to work, hence the appearance of a hoax. This was not due to the instrument being a hoax, but because it was a prototype of a new, more sophisticated unit that failed to work at the show, and thus could not be demonstrated. This unit was 12 bits vs the 8 bits that had been working for years, and was improved in other ways. So it was not a hoax, but an embarrassing temporary failure. I can't cite a source other than that I was involved in the project. Mesodude (talk) 01:45, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]