Portable Midi Keyboard

30 EE November 1988 PORTABLE MIDI KEYBOARD A recently introduced integrated citcuit makes a dream of many electrophonics enthusiasts come true: to build one"s own MIDI keyboard around a handful of electronic components. The portability of the keyboard described makes it ideal for "first- aid" testing of MIDI equipment. Moreover, in conjunction with a microcomputer, it can be used for practising, composing and editing musical pieces in places where a full-size keyboard is cumbersome to use. The Type E510 is a recently introduced integrated circuit that reduces the corn- plexity of a MIDI keyboard to the extent that home construction of such a unit is at last within reach. Until recently, building one"s own MIDI keyboard was way of out reach of the average elec- trophonics enthusiast because of cost and complexity. At that time, even the simplest of do-it-yourself MIDI keyboard required building blocks such as a processor, random-access memory, read-only memory, high-precision mech-...