The Miracle Piano Teaching System (accessory)
From Sega Retro
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| The Miracle Piano Teaching System | ||||||||||
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| Made for: Sega Mega Drive | ||||||||||
| Manufacturer: The Software Toolworks | ||||||||||
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The Miracle Piano Teaching System is a keyboard peripheral for the Sega Mega Drive, among other popular computers and consoles of the day. It was designed for use with special software, also called The Miracle Piano Teaching System.
Hardware
Despite its name, the Miracle Piano is a keyboard and a simple one at that compared to its competition. It has six built in voices (versus the hundreds typically of keyboards of the era) and can act as a regular stand-alone instrument. It has a full set of 88 keys, all of which are pressure-sensitive, however as the keyboard is made entirely out of plastic, it lacks the rigidity of metal framed keyboards commonly seen with Yamaha and Casio.
What makes the Miracle Piano unique is the inclusion of a "Miracle Port", allowing it to link up to a variety of computers and game consoles. This means while the Mega Drive Miracle Piano was marketed as a Mega Drive-specific device, all Miracle Pianos are fundementally identical, save only for the connector cable and included software. The original Miracle Piano was released exclusively for the NES and so has a printed Nintendo Seal of Quality on the case - other versions, including those designed for the Mega Drive, cover this logo with a piece of plastic (as already-completed shells were recycled en masse).
As well as releasing Miracle Piano bundles for the NES and Mega Drive, The Software Toolworks also released versions for the Super NES, Macintosh, Amiga and IBM PC compatibles around the same period.
Magazine articles
Physical scans
| Mega Drive, US |
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   Cover
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References