Computer History Museum

In the spring of 2025 I visited the Computer History Museum and saw the mysterious sideways metal pyramid of switches that is the Triadex Muse, an early sequencer/synthesizer. It's a weird piece of music gear that put into the hands of regular people a pseudo-random generator of melodies that could bloop and bleep for years before repeating itself.

Being a huge music nerd and someone who loves learning about how software and hardware work, this piece was so much fun to research and write, and an honor to have published on the Computer History Museum Blog.

As its user manual so cryptically states, "The Muse starts where all the music that has ever been composed leaves off. The Muse is for tomorrow's music. Music that has never been heard before... until you." In this article I demystify this obscure electronic music box.