Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
Casio DM-100 Double-Decker Sampler
By bohus
In the world of Casio, there are a few holy grails - and this is among the holiest. I don't know that I've ever seen another double-decker consumer keyboard that wasn't a big ol' organ. The DM-100 isn't as big as it might look as it has reduced size keys, nor does it sound all that great - so what makes folks care about it?
The bottom keyboard is a fairly typical Casio of the late 80's; 12-bit PCM sounds, instruments pan wildly between speakers for fakey stereo, automated chords, etc. The top keyboard is a little more interesting in that it's basically the venerable Casio SK-1 sampling keyboard (actually its older brother the SK-5) built into the same case.
For those who don't happen to remember, the SK line of keyboards were the first affordable samplers. The top keyboard on the DM-100 holds four separate 0.7 second samples that you can play as an instrument on the keyboard. Gone are cooler SK features i.e. the limited sample editing and editable synthesis, no laser gun or lion sound effects, nor are there the old blip blip blip analog drumbeats. Basically it's two separate keyboards hot-glued together in a fancy case. Besides sharing an output and a power supply, the two keyboards really have nothing else in common. Still cool tho. :)
