A minor correction is in order for D.L. Bullock's posting in
yesterday's MMD: The instrument he refers to is the Jacquard Loom,
a machine that uses punched cards to automatically weave complicated
patterns in lace making.

The spinning jenny is a spinning wheel that allows multiple threads to
be used.  Although I have read that Jacquard's invention is considered
to be the earliest known "computer" (depending on your definition of
the word) automatic music machines were earlier.  Mozart died in 1791
and he wrote music for mechanical music clocks, while the Jacquard Loom
appeared around 1800.

In Arthur Loesser's great book, "Men, Women and Pianos", he describes
automatic music machines that sound like they were from the Middle
Ages.   Arthur Loesser was a great pianist and even greater scholar.
He made Ampico rolls, and was the older brother of Frank Loesser, who
wrote "Guys and Dolls", among other works.  Arthur jokingly referred
to his brother as "The evil of two Loessers"!

Randolph Herr
 [ The pinned cylinder that controls the music of the carillon is
 [ a very early example of stored binary data.  The holes in the
 [ punched cards that controlled the Jacquard loom are probably the
 [ first use of "negative true logic": the _absence_ of the medium
 [ represented a data "one" or "true".  -- Robbie