Yamaha CX5M music computer "The world's first music computer now has a broader repertoire" ad, Keyboard 1986

Yamaha CX5M music computer "The world's first music computer now has a broader repertoire" two-page full colour advertisement from pages 84 and 85 in the April 1986 issue of Keyboard Magazine.

Over a year after CX5M's 1985 "You've always had an ear for music..." introductory advertisement started running, Yamaha finally came out with an encore in another two-pager.

This time around, Yamaha had two messages to get across

1. Show readers how much the music software and hardware had grown for the platform.
2. Push the business side of the machine.

On the music software/hardware front, there really has been some good developments. In the original ad, Yamaha promoted four pieces of software with the CX5M - their FM Voicing program, FM Composer program, the FM Music Macro program and the DX7 Voicing program. By the time this ad came around, that list had grown to also include, listed in the order they appear in the ad:

• MIDI Recorder program - compose, edit and arrange music in step-time or real-time
• RX editing program - for editing Yamaha's RX11, RX15 and EX21 digital rhythm machines
• DX21 Voicing program
• Keyboard Chord Master
• Keyboard Guitar  Chord Master
• Graphic Artist Program
• Second generation FM Music Composer
• Second generation FM Music Macro program

Did you catch that in the middle of this list? They threw a graphics program in there! And they even thought it was such a great addition to the system that they let a screen shot take up some valuable real-estate in the ad.

Hardware for the CX5M also got some good coverage in the ad. And not just in the ad-copy. That big photo of the computer itself has a lot more things attached to it in this advertisement when compared to the original ad. And Yamaha included a whole subsection on the topic of hardware, including the oh-so-description:

• SFG05 - FM tone generator module with 46 of its own preset voices, an 1800-note sequencer and room for 48 user-programmed voices.
• YK01 and YK10 keyboards
• FD05 and FD03 Micro Floppy 3.5" disk drives (with MSX-DISK BASIC language "built into the disk drive interface cartridge" - what ever that means?!?!
• PN101 dot-impact printer
• MU01 mouse

Again - Yamaha has made an interesting choice to use up precious page real estate to include a photo of that Yamaha printer, and although that printer is printing out music notation, its clear that Yamaha is also positioning this thing as a business machine.

If that big photo of the printer isn't enough evidence of the business side of things, you only have to look at that ad-copy. Before Yamaha even begins to give readers insight into the new MUSIC hardware and software available, Yamaha spends **two paragraph**s talking about TeleWord - CX5M's word processor.

Teleword featured "advanced" (my air-quotes) word processing functionality such as global search and change, cut-and-paste text transfer and on-screen page layout. On the communications front, it included an auto-dialer with redial, 50-entry digital phone book and complete adaptability with 300 and 1200-baud operations.

Remember - this was 1986. Telecommunications among pleebs like us was still occurring mostly through services like Compu$erve at dial-up speeds and huge connection costs.

Still, I love this line from the ad.

"So whatever you create with TeleWord's word process (or other CX5M programs), you can send to computers anywhere in the world."

And I'm still waiting for a good one to pop up on eBay.