There is a growing number of musicians who, like me, have rediscovered the vintage digital instruments from the late 1980's through to the late 1990's. Two common problems with these instruments as they are used and age are the LCD displays and buttons on the front panels. Pretty much across the board the displays and control panels on these instruments were hooked up with simple ribbon cables. Many synthesizers and samplers of this era were dedicated computers, with memory, hard drive, and other components pulled from PC technology.
I'm wondering if it's feasible to insert an Arduino in between the motherboard of the instrument and the user interfaces, then introduce i/o through a USB port so a computer could not only mimic the LCD display, but also send button push signals back to the instrument.
Here's a quick sketch of the signal path:
Instrument Motherboard <=> <=> Control Panel
Arduino
USB Host <=> <=> LCD Display
The first thing I would address is whether the signals coming from the instrument motherboard were digital or analog and how many there are.
Depending on which Arduino you are using, there is a limited number of digital and analog I/O, you'd have to determine how many inputs you need vs how many the board you're using has. If it has enough, it would just be matter of capturing those input signals, converting them to a useful variable, then piping them out the Serial line of the Arduino into a host device with a program to convert the data into useful visuals.
Another method would be to get an LCD that the Arduino could talk to directly, and take the input signals and pipe them onto the LCD display.
Thanks for this great information! I'll start collecting more information on this soon, and order a basic kit with an LCD panel that matches at least a few of my samplers.
I'm going to assume that the signals are all analog for now, and if an analog adapter can't read them then it's probably digital
