And to think your parents claimed you were wasting your life playing thousands of hours of video games as a kid. Little did they know you were actually building up important musical skills that could one day see you performing at Carnegie Hall — at least if they let you play this fantastic Pianocade keyboard/video game controller hybrid.
Targeted at the Chiptune crowd who want their performances to be as authentic as possible, the Pianocade is a digital synthesiser that not only sounds like a vintage arcade game, it looks like one too. A series of black and white arcade buttons stand in for piano keys, while other arcade-borrowed features include a joystick, and even a pair of fake coin slots for changing settings and sounds. The top-of-the-line two octave model will set you back about $US325, while a smaller $250 single octave model looks a little easier to travel with. And if you prefer to DIY, you can get just the electronics for a mere $US100, but the real retro charm here is the hardware itself.