By Andrew Liszewski
When it came to ‘portable’ music in the 80’s your had your choice between Sony’s Walkman, which allowed you to enjoy your tunes in private, or a massive boombox that let everyone on your block know how much liked Run DMC. And just as today’s MP3 players battle it out with unique features and designs, the same thing happened with boomboxes ‘back in the day’. At some point Sharp reasoned that if people enjoyed singing and dancing along with their music, they might also enjoy playing along on a miniature keyboard. So their MR-990 Melody Searcher boombox, which seemed to be only available in Japan, has a hidden pullout keyboard that also worked with a built-in sequencer. Here’s what eBay seller ‘thuggin_way777’, who currently has a mint condition MR-990 up for auction, has to say about it:
MR-990 has built in mini melody computer keyboard in sliding shelf and it’s Detachable
and what a cool design this melody computer is!
this melody computer has sequencer function,you can program your melody by step by step
and melody computer automatically add suitable accompaniment(chord and bass) for yoour melody
of course you can just play this keyboards alone
sound is very warm analog sounds both melody and rhythm box
there are 3 sounds and 4 rhythms are selectable, has 2octave,
another feature are twin cassette tape player/recorder,FM/AM radio tuner,5-Band Equalizer,
Detachable Speakers and each control knobs etc..
And if you think this is a must have item for your own collection, the starting bid is $299, though you’ll also have to cough up $152 for shipping to the states, or $180 if you live in Europe.
[ eBay – SHARP MR-990 MELODY SEARCHER boombox with mini-organ ] VIA [ Retro Thing ]
