First, in 2007 Matrix covered Greg Danner’s restoration of the notorious Sal-Mar Construction, an obscenely complex synthesizer from 1969 controlled by digital logic sequencers. What you didn’t know: Greg has a Flickr account full of photos of the restored Sal-Mar.
Also in 1969, Joel Chadabe had Moog build a modular synth along roughly similar lines–no keyboard, lots of sequencers. The innards of the CEMS are documented here.
Great to see the Sal-Mar on this website! I was a composition student of Sal’s at Illinois in the mid 80’s and saw the beast in action a number of times. Hearing about the Sal-Mar was was brought me to studying with him.
BTW I’ve got a number of creations inspired by the Sal-Mar on the above site. I’ve created an account on WordPress but for some reason the user name (soundsfromthelab) isn’t recognized here. Have a look on the site and feel free to post things that look interesting.