•Dear Jody & Friends, I have just acquired through a friend a mechanism which is supposed to be a Link player mechanism. I have my doubts as to its originality but I will tell you what I can, and maybe get some input from the group. It came from a blind gentleman who was planning to install a pipe o...

•Unless it is really early, such as the one that was a bin under keyboard, all Link pianos used the same spoolbox. They had metal sides and a brass tracker bar. There was a heavy steel roller that sits on the paper to provide traction for the rubber roller to pull the paper. They were well made and ...

•Larry Toto wrote: > To all MMD takers: This question appeared in a quiz in the April > issue of AOPA Pilot Magazine (Airplane Owners and Pilots Association): > > His father manufactured player pianos and nickelodeons, and in 1929 > he used the innards and principles of organ construction to invent ...

•The answer to yesterday's query (from AOPA Pilot Magazine - Apr 98) is Ed Link, who developed the Link Trainer, which has evolved into today's sophisticated full-motion flight simulators. Commentary: Evolution takes a radical turn sometimes. It was thought for many years that the species of instrum...

•When I was with the Civil Air Patrol in Jackson MI we had an honest-to-john Link Trainer of our own. That was in the late 'fifties. Quite a feather in our cap at that time, as very few of them were still around, so I was told. Hal Davis

•I see annually a fully restored original Link Trainer which my company displays in its training center lobby. Peeking inside, many pneumatics, ladder chains, and valves are clearly visible. These early trainers, which look like toy airplanes, were used by the army to introduce aviation cadets to th...

•The first pneumatic machine I ever worked on was a Link Trainer. I grew up on the local airport in the Texas panhandle. We had a Link used for instrument training. I 'flew' it every spare minute when in high school. I accumulated over 400 hours in the thing by the time I was 18 (1956). It gave very...

•>[ I get the same feeling watching the endless music roll pass >[ through the drive rollers on a Link orchestrion! Robbie wrote the above comment in MMDigest 981228, wondering how those Link rolls work without getting tangled. I worked for IBM since 1959 in various capacities, but spent the largest...

•-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD -- Hello, everyone. My name is Michael Roseboom, and I'm located in Binghamton, New York. I have been interested in automatic musical instruments since I was a kid and have been a member of MBSI East Coast Chapter for about ten years now. I and seve...

•I am wondering if anyone on the list is familiar with or knows someone who is familiar with the vacuum-pneumatic organ console actions built by either Link (Binghampton, New York) or Möller (Hagerstown, Maryland)? Thanks, Grant Chapman

•Through the courtesy of a friend, I recently came across a cabinet from a Link photoplayer unit. This oak (I believe) case is about 40" or so square and inside is a bass drum, snare drum, small cymbal, fire gong, horse's hoof, and triangle. The rest of the Link Photoplayer is destroyed. If anyone i...

•Rusty King, Terry Hathaway, Dana Johnson, and I have been working on a Link registry of coin pianos and orchestrions for the Mechanical Music Press web site, http://www.mechanicalmusicpress.com/ At the same time, I'm working with Dave Bowers on the massive new Guide Book of Coin-Operated American P...

•Mechanical Music Press announces its new registry page devoted to the Link Piano Company and its predecessor, the Automatic Musical Company, both of Binghamton, New York, at http://mechanicalmusicpress.com/registry/link/link.htm We include a brief history of the two companies; photos of known model...

•While visiting with my son-in-law's brother from Seattle last Thanksgiving, he mentioned that he had been told that some major player piano manufacturer had produced early flight training simulators for the Army Air Corps, or Air Force, during either World War One or Two, maybe both. I suggested th...

•I am a private pilot with an instrument rating. I remember my first instructor telling me that early flight simulators were pneumatic. A quick read of Wikipedia on flight simulators gets us to some information on the "Link Trainer": http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet_print.asp?fs...

•There are a few of these around at various aviation museums: http://www.aero-web.org/specs/link/linktr.htm Marc Kaufman

•Anyone in Great Britain who wishes to see a Link trainer should go to the Glenn Miller Museum at Twinwood Airfield Museum near Bedford, http://www.twinwoodevents.com/museums/ The reason this museum at this location celebrates the life of Glenn Miller is that it was from this exact spot that he boar...

•Hi MMDers. I love finding connections between mechanical music technology and modern technology. When I was on the patent review committee at work, hardly a year went by when I didn't discover someone re-inventing some sort of mechanical music technology and trying to patent something that was know...

•Randy Stanley asks, "Does anyone know about 'flight simulators' being driven by air motors and pneumatics?" The answer is "certainly". Edwin Link worked in the Link Organ Company owned and run by his father. Ed's primary interest for a long time was in aviation which he thought was going to be a ma...

•I'm probably not the only MMDer who has been asked to help restore a Link Aviation trainer. Many years ago I rebuilt some of the components of a Link trainer at the museum in Balboa Park, San Diego, California. There were a lot of very ordinary player piano components. As I recall a roll motor was ...