My RE-303 CPU died and took a bunch of good patterns with it. Just like that—sequences I'd spent hours refining, vanished.

That's when it hit me: if this happened to me, it's happening to everyone. These machines are nearly 40 years old. Batteries die. Memory fails. Patterns get lost—and there's no undo button.

But this isn't just about individual loss—it's about cultural heritage. The TB-303, TR-808, TR-909, and TR-606 didn't just make sounds; they shaped entire genres. Acid house, techno, electro, hip-hop—all built on the backs of these boxes. The patterns people created on them are the building blocks of electronic music as we know it.

The visual notation system for sharing TB-303 patterns emerged organically from bedroom producers in the late '80s and early They'd scribble sequences on napkins, share them in magazines, post them on early internet forums. It was a grassroots preservation effort that deserves a permanent home.

Acid Archive exists because we needed a place to preserve these patterns before they're lost forever. A tool that's free, accessible, and built for the community that still keeps these machines alive.