DOWNPOLY played a LIVE GIG at the Vintage Computer Festival Southwest (Dallas) 2026 https://www.vcfsw.org/ and gave YouTuber MONROE WORLD https://www.youtube.com/@darkuni an interview and tour of his TRS-80 rig: 

"While out at the convention in Dallas/Fort Worth, I had the absolute pleasure of catching up with Joel, better known as Downpoly. What he has going on is absolutely crazy—he is bridging the gap between retro computing and modern electronic music using vintage TRS-80 microcomputers.

Joel walks us through his incredible setup, utilizing Michael Wessel's MIDI-80 interface and George Phillips' Orchestra 90 organ software to push these classic machines to their absolute limits. We dive into the production of his albums, how he uses a Tandy 2000 running Windows 1.0 to generate his album artwork, and his complex pedal and synthesizer chain.

As a massive advocate for physical media, I was especially thrilled to see his custom colored vinyl pressings and CD releases for his albums. It is an amazing mixture of digital and physical art that lines up perfectly with what we do here on the channel.

Be sure to check out his music and support his physical media releases using the links below!

Support Downpoly:
Website & Merch: https://downpoly.com

Listen At:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7oj8N..."

I absolutely LOVE the MIDI/80 + TRACKER rig Joel has created: