BL R-series engine BL R-series engine The R series is a line of petrol engines introduced by British Leyland in 1983 for the then-new Austin Maestro. It was only produced in one capacity—1.6 litres. The engine was essentially a lightly modified version of the E-series unit found in the Maxi and Allegro. The main differences over the older engine are to the sump and gearbox mounting flange, which were adapted to accept a traditional "end-on" transmission unit which had been bought from Volkswagen in place of the traditional BMC transmission-in-sump arrangement. The R series was mainly a stop gap, and had a very
Serge synthesizer with metallized plastic film. Throughout this period, systems were available built or as kits - boards supplied pre-built and tested but you wire the panels up yourself. In 1979, Serge offered a standard module configuration - the "System 79". The N voice controller was a polyphonic interface which worked with a modified Casio keyboard. Sadly it appeared around 1982, just before MIDI. The 1980s were not good times for modular synthesizer manufacturers, and no further Serge modules appeared after 1983. In the early 1990s, Sound Transform Systems took over the range and added a few of their own designs to