Lowrey Genius g100 error help

[BigOges]

Greetings all! So, I've inherited the old family keyboard from the 80's. We've been using it to see if the 9yo will take to piano before we drop any notable investment.

This thing has been a tank for 30/40-some years. Everything has been fine on it until the other day. Upon starting it up, The display reads only “o?o?o?o?o?o?”.

I remember some combination of buttons for a reset code, but for the life of me I can't remember or find any documentation on it. I thought I'd appeal to you fine people to see if anyone knew the reset procedure?

(note, for anyone googling, the combination of 4-6 keys is not it (and doesn't work). If memory serves it was all buttons - like command and enter at the same time....but I wouldn't swear to that.)

Thanks!

[andyg]

I've moved this to Home Organs, where it should be seen a bit more.

I'll ask one of my friends who used to work for Lowrey back then, but be prepared to learn that this is an expensive or terminal failure.

Teacher's hat on for a moment. If you want to see if your 9yo will take to piano, you'd be better advised to buy a used keyboard. $25 will probably be enough. It needs to have touch sensitive keys and a half decent piano sound and I don't think the G100 has those keys. It's been so long since I saw one I can't remember what the piano sound was like, but in the 80s, they weren't that good. And if your 9yo doesn't like piano, sell the keyboard, adding $5 or $10 to the price you paid!

[BigOges]

Thanks in advance for any thoughts towards a fix! If it's a terminal issue, so be it. This thing has been on borrowed time for a while.

And, to your “teacher hat” suggestion: I have a couple old middle-to-low range keyboards from my band days. We have him playing this for the time being, but he gets distracted but the myriad of voicing options or presets. That's what was so great about there Lowrey - it was pretty basic, especially with out those 8-track looking insert, that about all he could do was listen to Bosa Nova or practice...and he usually ended up doing the latter. :->

It's likely full piano time at this point anyway (it's been a year or more now, I think), but I figured a hail Mary on the reset was worth a post.

Thanks again!

[geoelectro]

If memory serves, that message had to do with the optical sensor in the cart socket not functioning. We used to have to physically adjust the sensors so they can "see" each other. Like garage door sensors.

Inserting a cart would interrupt the light beam resetting the instrument. The reset would detect the presence of the cart and identify the type. Any permanent interruption of the beam holds the instrument in reset condition and it will not run.
Geo

[BigOges]

Problem solved! Thanks in huge part to geoelectro's cartridge info, I was able to dig up the carts at my parents'. Tried to put one in, but it wouldn't seat properly. Took a look and one of those keychain fob cards fell in there. Must have fallen out of the book or something....

Either way, slipped that out in two seconds and we were back to running! Such an easy fix, but I don't know that I would have found it without the cart info!

Thanks all! May the Lowrey Genius live on for another 40 years!!!