[eashman]

Yeah I was starting to use PCs during the Apple II era so we didn’t have 8 inch disks anymore by then in my house. But I do remember seeing them in labs with VAX systems.

But those specialized music workstations all were custom designed so the parts etc. used were based on older standards I’m sure. Pre-ISA bus too I would guess.

Nowadays, even a lot of embedded devices like IOT things are running effectively a Linux OS on them so the economies of scale are enormous compared to the early 80s music gear.

I imagine Roland and other similar companies had their own OS or base platform they used on those earlier workstations that eventually had screens you could attach.