MATRIXSYNTH: OB-VFD Oberheim Matrix-12 and Xpander Display Replacement


Thursday, November 13, 2008

OB-VFD Oberheim Matrix-12 and Xpander Display Replacement


via Bendon Sound Technology

"The Oberheim Xpander and Matrix-12 each use three 40-character VFDs (Vacuum Fluorescent Displays) to communicate with the user. VFDs have admirable brightness and contrast and the majority of units are still working well after more than 20 years.

However, for a couple of reasons there is a small but growing minority of owners suffering from display problems which either degrade or, at worst, prevent use of their instruments...

There has been much discussion about the integration of modern VFDs into the Oberheim synths, but to do so presents many technical difficulties, primarily caused by the very different data interface fitted to the modern displays.

I am pleased to say that these issues have now been overcome here at Benden Sound Technology. My OB-VFD upgrade utilises three Itron DN4015B displays - closest in dimensions to the original parts - and a microcontroller-based interface which accepts data directly from the Oberheim main board and parses it into the serial data stream required by the display modules. It also converts the original starburst data into smoothly-defined 7x5 dot-matrix characters."

You can find more info on Bendon Sound Technology.

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