BL R-series engine fitted to the Maestro with the carburettor facing the front of the car, which also led to a reputation for carburettor icing in cold weather. The endemic problem of crankshaft failure was later attributed to flexing of the crankcase – because the E series relied upon the heavy sump/transmission unit to give additional strength to the cylinder block casting, this caused problems when a plain sump was bolted in its place. The R series was superseded in 1984 by the S series. BL R-series engine The R series is a line of petrol engines introduced by British Leyland in 1983
Synthesizer States. This encouraged a trend towards producing music using digital sounds, and laid the foundations for the development of the inexpensive digital instruments popular in the next decade. Relatively successful instruments, with each selling more than several hundred units per series, included the NED Synclavier (1977), Fairlight CMI (1979), E-mu Emulator (1981), and PPG Wave (1981). In 1983, Yamaha's DX7 digital synthesizer swept through popular music, leading to the adoption and development of digital synthesizers in many varying forms during the 1980s, and the rapid decline of analog synthesizer technology. In 1987, Roland's D-50 synthesizer was released, which combined the