via this auction
Another one spotted by M Me.
Note the only ins and outs are on the front panel. It appears to be some sort of drum machine sequencer. If you know and/or can translate the controls, let us know in the comments below.
National (Panasonic) also made the RF-1300 and SY-50 Rhythm Machines as seen in previous posts.
Update: See the comments at the bottom of this post for more.
I think all the Japanese markings on the front panel are in "katakana", which is a phonetic way to spell foreign words - but the photos are a bit fuzzy. After "National", there is katakana for "Panakit". The katakana above the keys 1-7 approximate the "solfege" names for notes in a major scale - do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti. There are more katana on the keys above, with musical "sharp" signs after them for the "black notes" in a C-major scale. I guess that this is a 3-part sequencer with a simple internal tone generator. Not a drum machine.
ReplyDeleteContinuing ... It appears that you could set rests, note values, octaves, and durations via the keypad - reading and writing events either sequentially or by hexadecimal memory addresses (0-9 plus A-F span 16 hex values). The display would show values and hexadecimal addresses. The "sensor" jacks might be for momentary switches for "note-on" and "note-off" events.
ReplyDeleteI found more photos at the link below. A price of 39,800 yen is about $35US.
ReplyDeletehttp://www2d.biglobe.ne.jp/~oga/pc/oldpc/index-e.html
Closer to $300 USD actually.
DeleteI meant $350!!!
ReplyDeleteMe again. Maybe it has only one voice, and the LOW/MIDDLE HIGH select the octave.
ReplyDeleteComment via SmallBiz:
ReplyDeleteI located at https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2358231/1/53 the text 1チップマイクロコンピュータによる学習用ホビー4ビット･1チップマイクロコンピュータMN1400シリ-ズのアーキテクチャ/真弓和昭/p932～947
Architecture of the MN1400 Series 4-bit Single-Chip Microcomputer / Kazuaki Mayumi / p932-947
キット""Panakit""KX-33/坂井〔ハジメ〕 他./p1136～1142
in issue National Technical Report第23巻(昭和52年)総索引 //p1150～1153 ("Panakit" KX-33, a hobby kit for learning using a single-chip microcomputer / Sakai [Hajime] et al. / pp. 1136-1142
National Technical Report, Vol. 23 (1977), General Index // pp. 1150-1153)
The unit is an educational training kit for a micro-controller. Given it has a MAME emulation, it is likely it was used in TV or arcade games. See https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/mame0284/src/devices/cpu/mn1400/mn1400base.cpp for a description of the architecture.
You can probably get it to make noises, but you will need to write code using the machine language of the processor, and the sounds are likely limited to turning the voice coil on and off. I'd suspect modulation at any appreciable frequency will start to tax the machine.
You have an example of what is probably Matushita's first micro-processor. If you no longer want it, try to find it a good home.