Don, another good news is that the slide-out CD-R tray can double as a coffee cup holder!

On a serious note, though, my perepetual pet peeve is with the size of these keyboards. Surely, with a frame of that size, GEM could have easily fit a 76-key manual on the instrument. IMO, PSR2000 is the right size for a 61-key instrument, and Ketron SD1 is the right size for a 76 key one. Any frame bigger than theirs adds NOTHING BUT EXTRA WEIGHT and bulk to the instrument. Why do we need 8 inches of plastic on each side of the keys? When I play, my hands are way too busy to use the joystick or mod wheel, and if I can not control expression with aftertouch and a pedal than I have no use for it. While many people are not like me, and do want to use their joystick or wheels, there are other alternatives: move them up above the keyboard (a joystick does not have to take much room). Another alternative is to replace the wheels with the rolls - one of the old PSR keyboards had that. This way you can control the expression without taking hands off the keys, just use your thumb or palm of your hand. Then there is the innovative approach - use a tension stick (like in IBM and Toshiba laptops), it is just as expressive, and takes no space.

Then there is the issue of storage. I think that floppy disk should be eliminated and replaced with a slot (or two) for a compact Flash card. This will reduce size, weight, and cost of the machine. For us, users, this would mean that we can instantly replace the styles, sounds, OS, songs, etc. of our instrument. Those of us on a budget could settle for 128 MB cards (for $70 or so), while others could splurge for a 1 GB micro-drive from IBM (for about $300).

SCSI is another thing that is redundant: give us USB, which is found on every new computer. It can be used to send control commands, memory dumps, and digital audio (though only 1 pair of stereo signals) over to a PC for recording. While the CD-R is nice, I have a feeling it adds to the cost of the instrument about as much as it would cost us to buy and outboard recorder. And unless you want to record EVERY ONE of your performances, most of the time you will be carrying dead weight (not to mention the extra bulk).

Those are my one and a half cents' worth of comments.

Regards,
Alex