Hi All,  I hope I am not preaching to the choir or teaching grandma to
suck eggs, but I stumbled on a neat music notation system that may be
of interest.  I am excited about the possibility of extending the
printed output functions to include roll punch data to a printer or
punch.  The source for abc2ps (a postscript formatter) is available for
free and would probably be the best way to output punch data.  Check the
abc music home page at:

    http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/

Quoting from the page:

  "One of the most important aims of abc notation, and perhaps one
   that distinguishes it from most, if not all, computer-readable
   musical languages is that it can be easily read by humans.  In
   other words, with a little practice, it is possible to play a tune
   directly from the abc notation without having to process and print
   it out.  Even if this isn't of interest, the resulting clarity of
   the notation makes it fairly easy to notate tunes.  In addition, the
   ability to write music in abc notation means that it can be easily
   and portably stored or transported electronically hence enabling the
   discussion and dissemination of music via email."

There is freeware, shareware, and possibly commercial software that
reads the abc format and saves in MIDI format, some have built in
players and the printed output looks great.  (The MIDI to abc format
works, but is crude and needs much hand editing.)

Later,
Mickey Sadler, Dublin, Ohio
msadler@netset.com