Kawai Synthesizers

i will join you on this noble campaign to keep the q-80 alive :) 
dont forget to cover the lower right-hand hole of the diskette with 
tape *then format to 720kb. probably still good sense to backup 
though...

chuck

--- In kawaisynths@yahoogroups.com, "quantisationerror" 
<tharockpile@h...> wrote:
> 
> Yes, the Q-80 is an inscrutable beast... I too have had disk drive 
> problems recently. As with so many instruments from this era, the 
> drives invariably go sour with age. This is usually due to the 
belt 
> that drives the unit being loose. Fortunately, manufacturers no 
> longer use these damned belt driven devices, but we must deal with 
> their past mistakes. You can search for a replacement belt, or 
find 
> a suitable rubber band. Also I've heard that you can lightly sand 
> the pulleys that the belt rides on with emery paper, so that the 
> belt grips them. Does the Q-80 use a belt drive? I don't know, but 
> somebody should take a look. I bet it does. However, right at the 
> beginning of the manual, it mentions that you should clean the 
drive 
> heads if you are having read and write errors. I bought one of 
those 
> FDD cleaning kits, and I will use it soon and post my results. 
> As for replacing the drive with a new one, these old machines tend 
> to very picky about that, and you must be careful to use a 
> compatible drive. The Q-80 uses double sided, double density 
disks, 
> but if you're having trouble finding 2DD disks, try formatting a 
2HD 
> disk in it, and then it may just use 720k of that disk as if it 
were 
> a lower density. So letfs get to the bottom of this and please 
post 
> your findings and help keep this lumbering dinosaur of a sequencer 
> afoot.