Fairlight-CMI

On Sun, 31 Oct 2004 02:35:33 -0000, "Matt" <nycpartyguy@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Hi Matt,

Cards like these are rare, the MIDI/SMPTE card with the piggy-back
connector box on the back of the unit will easily cost more than USD
1000 if you can find one (Synhouse may have one). That is why broken
IIx sell for fairly high prices. The parts are getting very scarse,

Same is true for old diskette drives in the earlier units if they were
never upgraded. They are 'hardwired' for 60 or 50 Hz mains frequency.
I found it hard to believe initially, but actually saw the warning on
the back of my unit (which fortunately has drives that work in
Europe).

Save yourself the hassle and buy a system with all  the parts present,
in working order. If you really want one, you'll buy it in the end
anyway. If you can make money with it, just buy the working thing and
save yourself a lot of excitement and earn your $ sooner.

If you are somewhat adventurous and love to travel (like I do) then
any unit anywhere is game :-) As long as the price is reasonable you
may end up with a very acceptable unit. I paid less than 2,5 K US for
mine in Florida. But then again, I had to fly to Florida to pick it up
= extra costs.

Do notice that only 350 or so were built and quite a few will not be
for sale for a long time, quite a few are likely broken or demolished
(yak !) so very few working machines are available, over the past year
I saw 2 working ones with MIDI on e-bay and 1 working one without MIDI
in a private sale.

>What is involved in adding MIDI to a IIx if the original owner 
>didn't select that option and the unit was never upgraded.  From 
>what I gather, it requires a CMI-28 card.  But I also read in the 
>service manual that there is a box containing a CMI-29 that gets 
>bolted to the back of the mainframe.  Are these parts still 
>available (maybe from horizontal productions?)?  What do you think 
>is the total cost involved?  

Best regards,
Harald.