Now that the work of getting this mailing list started is settling
down, I thought I'd write a short message about what I'm doing and
what my interests are.  The "day job" is doing customer service
(and some software development) for a company that manufactures
large Unix boxes.  We sell these as computational engines for real-time
applications such as flight simulators, and we also sell them as "storage
devices" for large mainframe and open-system shops in sizes ranging
from 100 Megabytes to 3 Terabytes.

On the hobby end of things, my early training in piano and my frustration
at not ever being able to sightread fluently made the computer a very
exciting device.  My first contact with computer music was a D/A system
on the University of Illinois' Illiac II computer.  The system had a
monaural 12 bit D/A converter, and the input was punched cards.  The computer
filled two large rooms at the university and had a large staff to maintain it.
While employed at the university I designed and built two 16bit stereo D/A
systems for two differrent Unix boxes.  Who would have guessed that 25 years
later you could buy, for $200, a 16 bit stereo A/D interface and connect
it to a $1500 computer, or that having such a thing would be as commonplace
as it now is ?

I started experimenting with computer "archival" of mechanical musical
instrument scores in the late 70's when a friend made a video "frame grabber"
connected to a Unix system available to me.  This was long before the
appearance of graphic workstations.  Using a Calcomp (india ink) plotter to
test my programs was too slow and painful.  I never did figure out how to
"splice" the images together.  In '84 I started assembling an electro-
pneumatic roll reader.  That project got stalled with a job transfer from
Urbana Illinois to San Diego.

Once settled here, my wife and I went downtown to see "Cats" and happenned
upon the Marquee at the California Theater advertising a Theater Organ concert
the following weekend put on by the San Diego Theater Organ Society.  A
theater organ performance was my favorate recording in my dad's record
collection, so I couldn't resist the concert.  When we arrived for the
concert, we found a van parked outside with a homemade band organ in it.  The
band organ was playing creatively arranged tunes from "hand-cut" rolls.  I
was impressed enough that I stayed in touch with David Wasson, the builder
and arranger.  Later he went to work for Mike Ames, a retired engineering
manager and serious automatic musical instrument collector.

Mike had just completed a project to archive a large quantity of "book music"
(fan-fold cardboard) from European Dance-hall organs.  The archival was done
as MIDI files.  For me, this was the "sanity check" I needed that there were
others interested in computer archival and computerized playback of scores
from these old instruments.  The files needed a little "clean-up" and I
consequently wrote my first program to read and write a MIDI file.  I also
"reluctantly" ported the program from Unix to MS-DOS.  Learning how to
program on the PC was both a frustrating and humbling experience.  I used
to have a bad attitude about PCs and "segmented architectures" as a scholaraly
issue.  I now have a bad attitude about them from a practical hands-on
point of view!

The three of us have done a variety of projects now related to archival.  I
write most of the software, David builds most of the hardware, and Mike
provides moral support, a place to do the work and enjoy its results.  Mike
has installed MIDI interfaces on several instruments, including a Mortier
dance-hall organ, an Aeolean Residence Organ, an Ampico (A) piano, and a
Mills Violano. David has written some new arrangements for the Mortier and
Mills instruments using a standard MIDI editor on the PC and then using one
of my programs to "convert" the output to the correct format.

Our most ambitious project to date is an optical roll reader.  With software
I wrote, we can extract the score as a MIDI file, and then use a standard
MIDI editor to edit out "bad spots" from the roll, and archive it.  We can
convert music from one instrument type to another, including making
adjustments for the differrent percussion characteristics of differrent types
of instruments.  David has built a MIDI-driven roll perforator to make new
rolls for his band organ.  Regretably, David is not doing any custom
perforating but he is doing custom arrangements.  There are others associated
with this mailing list who can do custom perforation.

I have also written a program which prints "perforation templates" for hand-
punching book and roll music from MIDI files.  There's at least one other
person reading this list who has written a program to used a dot-matrix
printer this way.

With all of that said, I'd like to try to encourage those of you who are
interested in discussing things like file formats for the storage
and retreival of music, MIDI and other interaces, and programming issues
related to automatic musical instruments to make your interests known.

Thanks,¶
Jody

P.S.  I'm currently a member of American Theater Organ Society (ATOS) and
      the National Stereoscopic Association (NSA).  I was a member of the
      International Midi Association for several years but now, it looks
      like they are in the process of folding.  I've not been able to bring
      myself to pay for a membership in the MIDI Manufacturer's Association,
      but it would be appropriate considering how much MIDI software I write.
      MMA _IS_ the correct place to get MIDI specifications.
      
      I probably should join AMICA and MBSI.  Are there other organizations
      I've overlooked ?  I'd appreciate it if someone would post the
      addresses, phone numbers , and membership information for these groups.