Toy Player Piano
By Bill Jelen
If anyone is interested in "toy" automatic music machines, check out page 30 of the latest Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. They have a "Santa's Elves' Magical Player Piano". The interesting twist is this toy piano is designed to be placed on top of a real piano keyboard. 10 little elf feet protrude from under the toy piano keybed and actually push down the keys of your real piano to play 22 different Christmas carols. I am not sure how they develop enough "torque" to make the feet push the piano key down, instead of just lifting the little toy piano "up"...
It would be interesting to see if they are using some sort of MIDI electronics inside.
At U.S. $119 it is a bit pricey, but definitely cheaper than the $16,000 Pianomation offering.
--Bill Jelen
http://users.aol.com/BamRolls |
(Message sent Fri 17 Nov 1995, 17:58:00 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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