[ Here's some follow-up correspondence.  I don't recall if it
[ was published or not.  -- Robbie

Angelo,

Claus Kucher has talked with more than one dedicated hurdy-gurdy
owner/operator in Vienna who wants his Hofbauer organ to play
Austrian songs, instead of the German songs furnished with the
organ.  I suspect that this is an oft-occurring question raised by
present and future owners of the instruments.

Please ask the Hofbauer distributor, Hr. Fred Gerer, what the
company intends to offer for (1) playing the organ from an external
computer or sequencer via a Midi cable, (2) storing externally
created songs into the instruments memory (via "flash EPROM" or the
like), and (3) upgrading older Hofbauer organs for these
capabilities.

Hurdy-gurdy organs equipped with a music-roll playing mechanism
obviously enable the owner to change the music at will, just as with
a player piano; if the organ maker doesn't provide music which the
organ operator likes, some other "third party" _will_.  It seems
that Orgelbaumeister Hofbauer has now eliminated this option.

I'm reminded of Thomas A. Edison and his vertical-modulation disk
phonograph.  Edison refused to acknowledge the desires of the
consumers -- he himself approved the songs for publication -- and
this attitude resulted in the early demise of the Edison Phonograph.

Best regards,¶
Robbie Rhodes