After posting about Mill's Automatic Violin, I realized I never
properly introduced myself.

My name is Pete Docter, and I am an animator/story guy at Pixar.  I
helped write and animate "Toy Story," which came out in the U.S. last
November.  Though my interest in Automatic Musical Istruments goes back
to childhood, I am more or less a novice when it comes to practical
knowledge.  Which is why I signed up for this newsgroup.

I am also interested in automatons and "audio-animatronics," the modern
incarnations of automatons that appear at Disneyland in "The Tiki Room"
and in "Pirates of the Caribean."  Actually, the original way these
Disney figures were programed, on rotating notched cylinders, is very
similar to early piano players and music boxes.

My novice question of the day:  Are nickelodeons and orchestrions the
same thing?

Pete Docter¶
doc@pixar.com