Vintage Synth Repair

>>It's a well known problem.<<

not in our house, it isn't.... :-) 

this sounds like an actual fault- is it possible that the battery or
something else (leaky capacitor?) has damaged the pcb near the main
processor? 
there isn't a way, afaik, to completely wipe the memory through the
UI, but there is probably a "clear" input on the memory IC itself; you
may have a damaged track on the pcb or something flapping around on
one of the data buss lines that misreads the sequencer command...

does it end up with anything sensible in the patch locations or is it
garbage? do you end up with 64 patches the same?

damn. I thought poly800s were quite robust, too....

duncan.