Thought it might be interesting to hear how Synth Zone members got to where they are today and what made them choose their currant instrument.
Here’s my History for Starters.

I had always been interested in listening to music from an early age, but never thought of playing, and this continued in to the late 70s, however when we moved house in 1976, the neighbour had a Farfisa Organ which could be heard in summer when the windows were open, and while the organ is not something that I was into, some of the other sounds it produced sounded quite good. (I was bought up listening to all types of music, and so could appreciate most types)
We started going to a few demos in shops and hotels, and even joined the local organ society, and eventually my Father purchased a used Wurlitzer Electronic organ, which I used to play from self teaching books, however with other interests this was not a committed process.
A short time later, a friend bought us a recording of Franz Lambert playing the Wersi Galaxy 3 manual organ, and when I first listened to it, I thought no way were a lot of the sounds being produced by the organ. (I had heard top end organs from Lowery, Thomas, Yamaha, Farfisa etc, and thought I new what the capabilities of the electronics of that time were)
The following year Franz Lambert did a tour playing the Galaxy and 2 manual Helios, (Made famous by Kluas Wunderlich) and I was amazed to find that yes, the sounds heard on the recording were indeed being made by an organ, it was then that I made the decision that I have got to get me a Wersi. (And the fact that you could build them from kits really put the icing on the cake)
Due to various commitments it was not until 1985 that I finally got around to building a Wersi, in this case the Alpha model, and the fact that you could play any instrument sound on any of the keyboards, Pedals and accompaniment was really spot on, (All the other main manufactures still had a limited number of sounds which could only be played on a particular keyboard manual etc, with occasional groups of sounds being able to be played on upper and lower manuals) this eventually gave way in 1989 to a Wersi Arcus which unlike the Alpha that had 8 bit processing, now used 16 bit processing thus giving increased sound quality and features.
Unfortunately due to various commitments it became increasingly difficult to find time to play and so around 1993 I sold the Arcus and left the keyboard scene.
With the coming of age of the PC, (and the fact that I had been playing with computers since the early eighties) this became my main interest, and about 1998 I bought a Midi keyboard which came with the Evolution sequencer software, I just bought it for a bit of fun, but instead this rekindled my interest in playing music, and so I purchased Cubasis software, which came with some soft synths as standard, I also upgraded my sound card from a SoundBlaster to a Yamaha XG card and the difference was amazing.
I also started going to keyboard concerts again, and around 2002-3 I purchased a Yamaha DGX 300 keyboard, I had also heard some recordings of the new Wersi OAS instruments, and while not sounding as impressive as when I first heard the Galaxy in the late 70s, they did sound quite good.
Around 2003/4 Roland had introduced the VA 7 which really impressed me and I was going to purchase it to add to the DGX 300, however at the same time a Wersi Abacus became available in the used musical instrument columns, and as it was not far away I decided to have a look, also it was half the price of a new one, (although the software was not the latest version) and therefore not much more than a VA 7, and well, what can one say, I tried it and fell in love with it straight away, so needless to say the VA 7 purchase went by the wayside, with the DGX 300 following shortly afterwards, the computer based system also disappeared as being a computer at heart I could do the same with the Abacus, but without the trailing wires and major software setup.
I have upgraded the Abacus since purchase and now run OAS 6 software, (OAS 4 was the original version that came with the Abacus) with various Akai samples loaded as well.
This is how it stands today, and while new keyboards from various manufactures have been released, and which contain some impressive features and sounds, (Yes even better then some of the OAS 6 software sounds) none have come close to achieving such a complete package as the Abacus, and consequently there has been no urge to change.
Anyway the above explains how I came to play the Abacus, and I hope you found it interesting.

Bill