9 replies to this topic

[fred]

I just picked up a Miracle Piano off of craigslist. I heard about it before and saw it was a rarity 9 on digitpress so I picked it up. The Piano is boxed but the game itself isn't.
So has anyone ever played or used the piano? Is it any fun? I'm kinda lazy and don't know if I want to go through the hassle of hooking it up. It does look cool though. Will the piano work with other systems? I also couldn't find one on ebay, anyone know what this thing might be worth?

[save2600]

I remember selling those through Wards back in the day for $200 I think they were. It's not really a game - more of a instructional tool to get people to learn music. Keyboard is probably a standard MIDI and just plugged into the controller ports of the NES where the cartridge did the I/O translation handling. Home Shopping Network (as did we) clearance'd 'em out at $50. They might be rare, but I wouldn't think they're worth all that much. But these times and ePay are often goofy destinations, so who knows

[user42]

Just wondering, what system is it for? It seems that it was released for.... NES, SNES, Mac, Commodore Amiga, Sega Genesis and PC. Which one are you getting?

[Bruce Tomlin]

fred, on Wed Dec 2, 2009 8:33 PM, said:

I just picked up a Miracle Piano off of craigslist. I heard about it before and saw it was a rarity 9 on digitpress so I picked it up. The Piano is boxed but the game itself isn't.
So has anyone ever played or used the piano? Is it any fun? I'm kinda lazy and don't know if I want to go through the hassle of hooking it up. It does look cool though. Will the piano work with other systems? I also couldn't find one on ebay, anyone know what this thing might be worth?

The keyboard itself isn't rarity 9. The cartridges are the rare part.

The same keyboard is used for all the various systems (NES, SNES, Genesis, and various computers), with only the cable being different. It supports both RS-232 (up to 56000 baud I think) and an NES-style serial interface.

I got the Sega Genesis cartridge loose, and had to reverse-engineer the Sega Genesis cable pinout. I disassembled the code and found it was sending MIDI commands via NES-style communication, then I had to find the NES cable pinout to know what pins were used on the piano side. I got lucky that someone had printed out a pinout from a web page that was gone and didn't get saved on archive.org. He was able to find the paper printout and I was able to make my cable.

NES/SNES/Genesis to Miracle Piano cable
=======================================
(all pinouts looking at the connector on the console)

  1       [1 2 3 4|5 6 7)
  2  7      ___________
  3  6     ( 1 2 3 4 5 )
  4  5      \_6_7_8_9_/

      SNES NES Genesis Piano
Vcc     1   7     5
Clock   2   2     9     19
Latch   3   3     7     13
Data    4   4     1     10
D3          5
D2          6
GND     7   1     8      7


Mac mini-DIN-8 to Miracle Piano cable
=====================================
                                      ______
                                     /      |
  Mac mini-DIN-8                    /    1__o  DB-25
                             ______/_14     |  (note: pin 1 connected
              ______________|_____|_____ 2  |   to shield of DB-25)
    (1)   (2) |             o_____|__15     |
   ___________|_____________|_____|_____ 3  |
  |           |             |     |  16     |
 (3)    (4)  (5)            |     |      4  |
         |___o______________o     |  17     |
             |              |     |      5  |
  (6)  (7)  (8)*            |     |  18     |
                            |     |      6  |
* pin 8 should be           |     |  19     |
  grounded, but wasn't      |_____|______7  |
  in my cable                     |  20     |
                                  |~~~~~~8~~|

Mac: 1=HSKo  2=HSKi  3=TxD-  4=Gnd  5=RxD-  6=TxD+  7=GPi  8=RxD+
Piano: 1=shield  2=RxD  3=TxD  7=GND  14,15=??? (connect to ground)

Basically, this is a standard serial cable, plus pins 14 and 15 are 
grounded for some reason, probably to select RS-232 mode.


PC DB-9 to Miracle Piano cable
==============================
2       - 3
3       - 2
7,14,15 - 5

A schematic diagram of the PC DB-9 cable can be found at:
http://www.electrongate.com/wpd/atcab.pdf

[Rev. Rob]

I have the "game" for both Genesis and NES. Here's mine:



Is it "fun"? Well, do you think learning how to play the piano would be fun?

Personally, I am pretty impressed with it. I have never played the piano before and it did teach me how to play some things. To me, that's very cool, and I had fun learning.

The system works with NES, SNES, Mac, Amiga, Sega Genesis, and PC.

It's also not really a hassle to hook it up.

As for value, I'd say a complete one is worth between $50 and $100. They fluctuate greatly. Here's an eBay listing that went for $72.50 + $4 S&H, and it included an SNES, two controllers, and some extra games. (link)

In looking around, I am seeing that the Piano alone has gone for between $20 to $61 recently on eBay.

Finally, the game cartridges are all loose because they were packed in with the keyboard.

Bruce Tomlin, on Wed Dec 2, 2009 11:43 PM, said:

The keyboard itself isn't rarity 9. The cartridges are the rare part.

I am pretty sure it's the opposite. Again, in looking at eBay there is a BIN on the NES cart for as low as $4.95. There are BINs for the SNES cart for $30, and I got my Genesis cart on eBay with a BIN of around $15 a few months ago. Even the cables aren't that expensive.

I think R9 is just overblown. I picked my set up from Bookman's for like $25. The real rarity is to find this complete with the box, all cables, inserts, and instructions.

Edited by Rev. Rob, Thu Dec 3, 2009 12:30 AM.

[fred]

user42, on Wed Dec 2, 2009 10:01 PM, said:

Just wondering, what system is it for? It seems that it was released for.... NES, SNES, Mac, Commodore Amiga, Sega Genesis and PC. Which one are you getting?

The Miracle Piano I picked up is for the Genesis. The piano is in great condition, in the plastic, styrofoam, and box. I'll probably hook it up in the next week or two and see if I can learn a couple songs.

[Rev. Rob]

fred, on Fri Dec 4, 2009 2:26 PM, said:

user42, on Wed Dec 2, 2009 10:01 PM, said:

Just wondering, what system is it for? It seems that it was released for.... NES, SNES, Mac, Commodore Amiga, Sega Genesis and PC. Which one are you getting?

The Miracle Piano I picked up is for the Genesis. The piano is in great condition, in the plastic, styrofoam, and box. I'll probably hook it up in the next week or two and see if I can learn a couple songs.

Just to be clear, the same piano will work with every system. You just need to get a different cord for each one and, of course, the software.

[fred]

Here's a pic of what I picked up.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

Edited by fred, Fri Dec 4, 2009 5:40 PM.

[nintendo]

The Miracle Piano is a nice piano teaching system. I bought a complete one a while back for $15 and it came with the PC software and NES cart/cables and manuals. I played it hooked up to an old laptop with Windows 98 and it's pretty fun. Still haven't tried it on the NES but I will eventually. Using a MIDI connection on a PC or Mac, you can use the Miracle keyboard with any music software.

[Tom-Lynx]

The Miracle piano system had a lot of potential...some of it fulfilled. I always wished it had led the era of music gaming by offering a KeyboardMania type game with it.