[sdiy] keyboard questions

[Glen]

At 11:19 PM 3/17/02 , Simon Gatrall wrote:

>>I hope that you aren't claiming that only two companies in the world
>>manufacture all the musical keyboards, because that is not the case. I'm
>>curious as to what you meant exactly.
>
>He's refering to the keyboard mechanisms themselves, not the keybaord 
>and the music making circuitry.  Indeed, Fatar makes a huge number of 
>the keyboards in the world.  Just like Alps, Keytronic and a few 
>other companies control the QWERTY keyboard business.

I know he meant the only the actual key mechanisms. However, he was at least
implying that Fatar and Yamaha held enough patents to completely control who
was able to legally manufacture a keyboard (literally a keyboard, not a
complete musical instrument). Again, this isn't true. There are certainly other
companies that manufacture keyboards (raw keyboards, not complete musical
instruments), besides Fatar and Yamaha. They also didn't have to pay license
fees to either Fatar or Yamaha, in order to do so.

Later,
Glen