Yamaha Disklavier MX80/MX88 Acoutic Hybrid Piano

[slickfix]

Hi all.

Just wanted to let everyone know I have used a Rev F SD HxC Emulator in my Yamaha Piano for years,
and it works great. Some people told me it would not work, but that is because they tried using an ibm
compatible interface, instead of a shugart interface. The Shugart interface uses the 34 pin connector,
but some of the output pins are different. Just get a schematic of your control box, and compare the
floppy controller output pins to see what interface you need.

The Original Control Box, which is a DKC5R, uses a standard ibm 720k 2DD floppy. The music disks are
not readable on a PC without special software, as they have the 1st sector of the floppy deleted, so
the computer thinks the floppy needs formatted. I have copied all my original disks. ( Which I Paid For!)

The Yamaha Disklavier is not a sythesizer. It is an Acoustic Piano (With Strings) that via solenoids, the
hammers and pedals are controlled via the electronics. Basically an electronic player piano, but you
can also play the piano yourself and have it record your performance. The Files are recorded as E-Seq
files, which is Yamahas early form of midi files. Later Disklaviers do record as midi.

Hope the Info will help some Yamaha Disklavier Owners. As I heard yamaha musicsoft will not be supporting
any floppy format in the near future. (As far as selling music.) I have over 80 disks which at $30-$32 a disk
is a lot of money, so I did not want to lose them, if my floppies go bad. I can't afford a new disklavier piano,
so I'll stick with my great old MX-88.

Thanks,

Eric

[Jeff]

Thanks for the feedback !
Don't hesitate to post here some pictures of the HxC with the MX80/MX88.

[bONEDADDY]

Hello slickfix. I am new to this forum and your comments on the Yamaha Disklavier caught my attention. I am troubleshooting just the same thing. You mentioned in your comments "get a schematic of the controller". Thats what I need. I looked everywhere including contacting Yamaha (no answer yet). So you know where I can acquire schematics of the controller DKC5R and the MX80 Power supply assemblies. Any help is appreciated.

[Foaminian]

All,

The original post came across as a "Ha Ha" I got is to work but I'm not going to share the details, so I thought I'd share and give back how I got it to work.

First I have a Yamaha Disklavier MX-100A. In the original post the author talks about having to have the schematics in order to cross reference the pinouts, this is red herring in my case. All I needed was 34 pin ribbon cable. The original one was too short as the HxC2001 Rev F has the 34 pin connector on the rear left side, so I scavenged one from an old PC. The original cable is a straight through, I also used a straight through cable. The only other hardware setting is making sure "ID0" is "on", all others should be "off". Attached is the schematic pinouts from the MX100a control board and the HxC2001, everything lines up.

MX100 CPU Floppy pinout.PNG (23.12 KiB) Viewed 10033 times

HxC2001 pinout.PNG (17.5 KiB) Viewed 10033 times

Format you SD card to FAT32

Next is probably the hardest part as you have to familiarize your self with HxCFloppyEmualator software. Under "SD HxC FloppyEmulator settings" you need to set these two settings:
HFE file Interfacemode = IBM PC 720kB
SD HxC Floppy Emulator Interface setting, Drive A, Mode = Generic Shugat
Load last loaded floppy = checked
All other check boxes = unchecked

Save this config file to the SD card's root directory.

Use the floppy image posted here viewtopic.php?t=3333

I loaded this image in the HxC Floppy Emulator software using "load" then edited the image using "disk browser" deleting the files and replacing them with my xxx.FIL files. The older Yamaha don't use Midi files. they use E-SEQ format that have the "FIL" file extension. So in this case the file name would be "songname.fil"

The File system type: = 3'5 720KB DSDD Fat12 (this will be set already if you used the image in the link above

Save the floppy image to the SD card, remove from computer, and place the SD card in the HxC2001, then power on and select the name of the image you just saved. The piano will read this floppy image as if it was a real floppy disk. At this point you can use the controls on piano just like normally would. Each image file on the SD card equals one floppy disk, so you have have all you music on the SD card and the select which floppy you would like loaded using the HxC2001 buttons.

Other notes:

The HxC2001 is smaller in height than the original drive. I cut a old disk bay blank to get a piece of plastic that I could hot glue to the HxC2001 to extend it's height. looks great now.

Also I had to use 6mm spacers under the HxC2001 and longer mounting screws to get the HxC2001 at the correct mounting height to lineup with the opening.

The mounting holes pattern in the HxC2001 matched the original drive, no drilling required!

I did upgrade the HcX2001 to the latest firmware, but this is not required.

My current computer does not have a floppy drive, all the above was done without a floppy drive. The music was backup from the original floppies many years ago when my computer at the time had a floppy drive.