Dear Robbie!  I'm not a expert in computers -- I only know the basics
to work with them.  The further details are that the camera is a line-
scanner.  I can't tell you how the information is stored; on the screen
you see the roll like it is in the original (of course, only a part of it)
and you can "work" on the roll, which means that you can repair it in the
computer.  (We all know the problems with wrong holes, broken sides or
with holes in a row where the bridges are gone, etc.).

It is always fascinating that you can see very often by the condition of
the roll if the roll is good music or not -- good rolls are played more
often, so that their condition is mostly not so good.

We also can change the size of the holes, the lines itself (thus we
made a cardboard book-music for our Bruder fairground organ from a
Ruth 37B fairground organ roll) and the speed (which means the length)
of the roll.

Another point for a optical reading system is that you can read anything
which has holes in it.  That means we also can read cardboards for
fairground organs, etc., and even discs for disc-music boxes, because our
system doesn't mind what it reads, as long as there are holes.

Joerg Wendel
MMM-GmbH

 [ Splendid!  That is exactly my impression as when I watched the optical
 [ scanner working at Mike Ames' museum in Solana Beach.  -- Robbie