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Is the Kurzweil PC3/PC361 being discontinued?


morty77

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The only differences between the PC3 and the PC3K are:

 

1) The K has wood end panels

2) The K allows you to load 128K of user samples into Flash memory which is available on boot up

3) The K has a USB port that allows you to use a thumb drive to load samples and OS updates

 

The original PC3 has:

1) Plastic end panels

2) No flash memory. Instead, there's room for an additional ROM expansion board, which will most likely never be manufactured.

3) Uses a XD memory card instead of a USB port. There is an onboard USB port that will allow you to connect to a computer for OS updates/saving files, but you can't use it to save/load from a thumb drive. YOu'll need an XD card for that. You can find these on eBay. Only some kinds of XD cards are compatible. See Kurzweil's site for specs.

 

As noted above, there is a forthcoming ROM expansion in the works, which will be compatible with both the PC3 and PC3K series.

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The original PC3 has:

3) Uses a XD memory card instead of a USB port. There is an onboard USB port that will allow you to connect to a computer for OS updates/saving files, but you can't use it to save/load from a thumb drive.

 

It's always amazed me how far behind keyboard companies are when it comes to technology. The USB interface has been around since the 90's!

 

:facepalm:

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It's always amazed me how far behind keyboard companies are when it comes to technology. The USB interface has been around since the 90's!


:facepalm:

The interface existed in the 90s, but no thumb drives did, so it would not have been a sensible approach. XD card was a reasonable solution at the time.

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The interface existed in the 90s, but no thumb drives did, so it would not have been a sensible approach.

 

 

Well, USB thumb drives have been around for quite awhile now.

 

Now that I think of it, the Korg M3 and Yamaha Motif XS were released before the Kurzweil PC3 series and they both have USB ports for external hard drives/flash drives.

 

:cool:

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Now that I think of it, the Korg M3 and Yamaha Motif XS were released before the Kurzweil PC3 series and they both have USB ports for external hard drives/flash drives.

 

 

And R&D for PC3 was conceived BEFORE M3 and XS (in 2003 or 2004 IIRC, when Kurzweil was just FIVE PEOPLE!!!), Kurzweil at that point decided on using xD and when the design was done it was too late to do any changes.

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Facepalm? Really?


What else should they use? Thunderbolt? USB is stable, easy to program, consistent, affordable, and universal.

 

 

You misunderstood... I think all keyboards should have a USB interface, since it's stable and common. I was amazed the original PC3 series didn't have USB for external patch storage.

 

It's taken most all keyboard companies forever to come "onboard" with current technology. Look at the original Triton--it still had a floppy drive in 1999!

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Over the past year, the PC3 has been phased out and gradually replaced with the Pc3K line.


You still might be able to find a good deal on a PC3/PC361 as some dealers still have them.

 

 

Ummm....they do? After I was told last year at this time that only B-stocks were available?

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I just got a new non B stock PC361 last month. You've been lied to.

 

 

Maybe not lied to.... it just depends on the specific dealer, and the distributors in each country. Some dealers might have a few units left.... but the PC3 and PC3x are getting harder to find "new" at this point, while there still seems to be a supply of PC361s.

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Actually PC361's is plural, PC361s is a model that doesn't exist.

That's the advice of at least one authority, but not necessarily all.

 

The most common general rule is to use an apostrophe to pluralize anything that's not a word. So, is "PC361" a word? Most would say "no". But, is it an acronym? Well, an acronym is a word, by definition. So, according to the rule, don't use an apostrophe to pluralize an acronym. However, many don't follow the rule, for acronyms.

 

If it's any consolation, there's even less agreement among experts about the proper use of the hyphen.

 

8-)

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As far as I understand, PC361s is the proper plural. However, you would use the apostrophe for possession, as in "I really like the PC361's action."

 

A common usage that bugs me is using the apostrophe after a decade as in, "I think the best music was made in the 70's." It should be '70s because the apostrophe represents the missing 19, but it is very common to see that mistake.

 

Here's a good summary of rules:

 

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/621/01/

 

That said, the New York Times (and others, I'm sure) will intentionally break the rule in the case of acronyms, and will talk about things like CD's and DVD's instead of the technically correct CDs and DVDs. They do this because they use all caps for headlines, and a headline like ACME TO STOP SELLING CDS looks confusing, as CDS in all caps reads as neither a word nor an acronym, and the distinction that would normally be made by lower case is unavailable to them when using all caps. So they go with CD'S for the all-cap clarity -- and then they use the same construction in non-cap body text for consistency. But yeah, technically, as far as I know, it's wrong, and since most people don't need to write in all caps, that visual confusion doesn't come up in most usage.

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Although I'm an English purist at heart (had it beaten into me) I do normally (mis)use the apostrophe with the plural names of our instruments to avoid confusion as we used to have boards like the K2600S or K2600XS. So I usually try to say "PC361's" and not PC361s.

 

I slipped just once in this thread and BANG - there was someone asking what a "PC361s" is!

 

[i should have made up a colorful answer in response...]

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As far as I understand, PC361s is the proper plural. However, you would use the apostrophe for possession, as in "I really like the PC361's action."


A common usage that bugs me is using the apostrophe after a decade as in, "I think the best music was made in the 70's." It should be '70s because the apostrophe represents the missing 19, but it is very common to see that mistake.


Here's a good summary of rules:




That said, the New York Times (and others, I'm sure) will intentionally break the rule in the case of acronyms, and will talk about things like CD's and DVD's instead of the technically correct CDs and DVDs. They do this because they use all caps for headlines, and a headline like ACME TO STOP SELLING CDS looks confusing, as CDS in all caps reads as neither a word nor an acronym, and the distinction that would normally be made by lower case is unavailable to them when using all caps. So they go with CD'S for the all-cap clarity -- and then they use the same construction in non-cap body text for consistency. But yeah, technically, as far as I know, it's wrong, and since most people don't need to write in all caps, that visual confusion doesn't come up in most usage.

 

 

"Exception:

Use apostrophes with capital letters and numbers when the meaning would be unclear otherwise."

 

Source:

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp

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"Exception:

Use apostrophes with capital letters and numbers when the meaning would be unclear otherwise."


Source:

 

 

It does not say to use apostrophes after numbers, it says to use them after numbers when the meaning would be unclear otherwise.

 

On that very page, look at the examples:

 

"Ted couldn't distinguish between his 6's and 0's.

You need to use the apostrophe to indicate the plural of zero or it will look like the word Os. To be consistent within a sentence, you would also use the apostrophe to indicate the plural of 6's."

 

Note that it doesn't actually approve of 6's as proper by itself, but allows it when combined with 0's for consistency's sake. It even says earlier that it is correct to write "She learned her times tables for 6s and 7s." So normally, one does not put an apostrophe after a number... but only if you think the lack of one is likely to lead to confusion.

 

So based on that link, I would say PC361s is definitely okay to type, and PC361's is arguably an acceptable alternative... it would be right if there were indeed a model PC361S, but since there isn't, and you're trying to avoid confusion with something that doesn't exist, it's probably technically wrong, but not egregiously so since such a model could reasonably exist. So Dave, if you want to write PC361's, it's okay with me. ;-) But PC361s is not an error, either.

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