In AfterTouch-1989-01 issue Yamaha intro-ed the V-80FD.
1. What ever happened to that keyboard?
2. Are there any still around?
3. Did they stick it in a room somewhere, and just abandoned it?
4. Did any of those ideas end up in some other synth that came after?

Thanks
TJ

Thanks for the interest... Since I was in that issue of Aftertouch, I guess I was there 🙂
1. The V80FD was never released. It was an upscale DX7-IIFD w/Sequencer - but there was a breakthrough in the next level synth - which they wanted to fast track to market... it was long in development and was just months away. At the very last minute (11th hour decision) it was decided to wait... the magazine with the V80 cover story was already done, the V80 NAMM Show signage was already made... but then we got word to wait. Something more exciting was imminent!

I remember introducing the V50 at that NAMM show...(I had a very early proto, the only thing really correct was the cosmetics; I could play just a few sounds for the folks - and I couldnt let anyone touch it - it was that early. The V50 was an 8-Part FM synth with an AWM2 drum machine built-in). The V50 was slated to be the "little guy" at the show, and the V80 was to be featured. As it turned out, we did not show the V80 ... the SY77 was introduced at the AES show in NYC later that same year, in fall of '89

2. If there are any in existence, they are protocol-types, I don't ever recall seeing an actual production model.

3. The breakthrough was the SY77, which contained not only the next level in FM synthesis but combined it with an AWM2 engine and a Sequencer, effect processing, expansion, etc., etc., etc.

4. The SY77 introduced AFM and some new wrinkles in the development of that technology... the V80 was like a DX7 IIFD with many innovations and the capability of internal sequencing - like the E! Expansion kit but built in... the SY77 was going to have the sequencing plus the combination of two technologies, samples and synthesis. Yamaha, coming out of the '80s boom, had several technologies in the works that were ready to be products...

So the SY77 can be seen as the synth that completed the original V80 concept. And was followed '91 by the SY99.