Atari Hotz MIDI Translator
"Hotz Box"



A complete Hotz Box setup, with an Atari STacy laptop

The Atari Hotz MIDI Translator (Hotz Box) was designed to interface with MIDI music devices and computers.  It was designed by record producer/engineer Jimmy Hotz, and co-developed by Atari.

There are two basic parts to the system.   The first is a hardware controller, which replaces a typical keyboard.  Unlike a conventional piano keyboard, the Hotz keyboard is totally flat, with no moving or mechanical parts.  The unit is extremely fast, with 10 parallel processors collecting and merging the data that you are "playing" on the keyboard.  The multiple parallel processors result in fast operation.  In a "worst-case" scenario, it would only take 7 milliseconds to translate what is played on the MIDI keyboard into MIDI data on the computer.

The other part of the system is the software, which turns your "finger pokes" from the keyboard into MIDI data. 

The Hotz Box

The device itself was marketed for a while by Atari.  It was not cheap.  The single unit above sold for approx. $6,000.   There were other modules available, and you also needed an Atari ST computer to go with it.

The rights to this device were given back to Jimmy Hotz at some point in 1992 or 1993.

Many people believe that this device was vaporware.  In fact, the Hotz Box was manufactured in the US, and available directly from Atari.  It was not sold through the conventional dealer channel. 

Many popular rock groups used this device in their recordings in the early 1990's.  One band in particular was Fleetwood Mac.   This device, along with other Atari computers, were used extensively in their "Behind the Mask" album.  Atari even sponsored their 1990/1991 world tour.