Lately on the MMD there were some links given to animated automatic
music machines on YouTube at  http://www.youtube.com/user/AnimusicLLC 

"Pipe Dream", the first big 'hit' of these animations from 2004,
inspired Intel to sponsor making one this past year.  Information
and video on this real machine (not an animation) is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAQX8W3D6Mg  and
http://www.intelfreepress.com/news/robotic-orchestra-hits-right-notes-for-industrial-control/ 

Some of the machines statistics: Rubber paintballs are fired by the
sensor-equipped, computer powered system to create a song.  The system
has seven Atom processors total, from three different generations, with
three different operating systems.  It has 250 industrial interconnects
and 36 paintball hoppers that shoot rubber, glow-in-the-dark paint
balls to play 2,372 notes in the song.  It cost $160,000 to build.

Maybe some of the other animations might inspire some in the MMD
community to take on making other interesting automatic music machines.
If someone wants to sponsor me, I'd _love_ to do it!

Gary Rasmussen
Mason, Ohio
MusicalInsuranceGuy@Gmail.com.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]