Are Player Pianos Early Computers ?
By Jon Hall
Hi,
While I will agree that player pianos were neither "first" nor "computers", (they should be considered "programmable", although not "stored program") there are some other interesting simularities.
Take the 88-note "standard" for rolls. It allowed a thriving industry to be created by having one layout of holes on the paper that could be used on many pianos. While not having all the capabilities of the reproducer, it had "enough" capabilities to attract a lot of "users".
Even with the standard in place, there were areas for improvement, and niche markets. Rolls could be made to last a long time (metal ends) or very cheap (cardboard ends). "Read heads" improved over the years by eliminating the mechanical limit switches (as found on my 1909 Beckwith) for the simpler (and more dependable) extra holes in the read head. People experimented with different kinds of paper. Even today there is one roll company that advertises their rolls pushing the cleanly cut holes over their competition.
This is an example of how a standard can exist, but vendors can differentiate on the execution of that standard. This exists in the computer field today.
md
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Jon "maddog" Hall
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