A Basic computer from the 1920's

[Uncle Al]

This is for all the computer buffs

Enjoy

B.U. Player Organ

Uncle Al

[Big and Bashful]

What a fantastic machine! It has everything, it is a computer, it is very mechanical and it is musical. That covers almost all angles.

[klaatu]

Al, you have impressed me yet again. What an absolutely wonderful find. I would really love to hear this thing in action without commentary. Thanks Al.
George

[Kilted Musician]

Thanks Al, for the link. I'm in the pipe organ business and I've never heard of this one. Great find!

--Rick [who, with my boss, just finished our Easter tunings yesterday... all 63 of them!]

[crfriend]

That was quite the find, Al. Well done.

From the looks of that particular device -- especially with the rather advanced for its day control setup -- I suspect that it was either a one-off or an R&D project that escaped the lab. It is impressive, nonetheless.

Interestingly, southern New England is fairly well infested with interesting organs of all ilk -- concert, church, theatre, and the smaller "home" units. Worcester -- right down the street -- is home to several fully functional examples including a beauty of a concert organ at Mechanics Hall and a "Mighty Wurlitzer" at the Hannover Centre, not to mention many church organs of varying sizes and configurations. There's also a positively massive concert organ in storage at Worcester's Veterans Auditorium, the future of which looks murky. The Boston/Cambridge area -- in its heyday more wealthy than Worcester -- is also rich in these things and that now includes another known one that Al pointed up.

BU (Boston University) likely has at least three or four functional organs, Harvard, has several, and most of the other "Prestige" schools likely have one or two; Symphony Hall has a magnificent concert organ, churches with them abound, and there are also a few other performance spaces that have them. So, these are quite from being a dying breed.

The "home pipe organ" strikes me as a bit of an inanity -- something for folks with more money than brains. It's not all that hard to get passably proficient on any instrument if one puts his mind to it.

[sgelerab]

Thanks, Uncle Al, for posting the link. This organ reminds me of carousel/band/fairground organs, which play from paper rolls or cardboard books. Seeing and hearing two old Wurlitzer Military Band organs on the merry-go-round at Seaside Heights, NJ back when I was a kid is what started my interest in organs. Sadly, with the passage of time, many of these as well as theatre organs are disappearing. There isn't the interest there once was in restoring them. Many young people these days have never heard a pipe organ or know what they are! There are some groups out there that are trying to change that. One of them is the Carousel Organ Association of America http://www.coaa.us/

George K.

[klaatu]

Oh and hey...if any of you think that the pipe organ is only for church or classical music.. get a load of the blues on the pipe organ. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGkdt6Ty ... re=related

[Kilted Musician]

Oh and hey...if any of you think that the pipe organ is only for church or classical music.. get a load of the blues on the pipe organ. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGkdt6Ty ... re=related

When I started working for my current employer in the pipe organ business, I remember playing a short jazz/rock type riff after we had tuned the church's pipe organ. OMG... I thought I was getting the Look of Death from him! He's a church organist and, according to him, you only can play classical and sacred music in church. I guess it didn't bother him that much. That was about 9 years ago and we're still working together!

--Rick

[Kirbstone]

Not that I am an organist as such, but the local eclesiastical powers that be tend to rope me in at religious festivals to play the organ, and this coming Easter Day is my next fun opportunity. I say that, because although I'll deliver their standard requesite hymns & psalm &c. the locals are now almost expecting me to produce something 'non-churchy' at the end, so I'm working on a distinctly swing arrangement of Easter Parade to blow them all out into the Sunshine (wouldn't it be nice!)
Our local God box has an old-fashioned tracker pipe organ, so getting any sort of racey rythm going on that thing is hard work, but for the music buffs among you the current TJK brainwaves are revolving around the recessional Easter hymn in that nice key E-flat 'Lasst uns erfreuen' (the whole bright world rejoices now) which can slide seamlessly into a very upbeat 'Easter Parade', which will save me having to bone up something Baroque.
Tom K.

[Kilted Musician]

"... the locals are now almost expecting me to produce something 'non-churchy' at the end, so I'm working on a distinctly swing arrangement of Easter Parade to blow them all out into the Sunshine (wouldn't it be nice!)"

Sounds like a great postlude for Easter... hope it works out!

Our local God box has an old-fashioned tracker pipe organ, so getting any sort of racey rythm going on that thing is hard work...

One of our clients has a 70 rank tracker made by Rieger, in Austria. Considering the size, it plays nice.

"... but for the music buffs among you the current TJK brainwaves are revolving around the recessional Easter hymn in that nice key E-flat 'Lasst uns erfreuen' (the whole bright world rejoices now) which can slide seamlessly into a very upbeat 'Easter Parade', which will save me having to bone up something Baroque.
Tom K.

Sounds like a plan to me!

--Rick

[skirtyscot]

the current TJK brainwaves are revolving around the recessional Easter hymn in that nice key E-flat 'Lasst uns erfreuen' (the whole bright world rejoices now) which can slide seamlessly into a very upbeat 'Easter Parade'.

Should go down a storm, Tom. Reminds me of a time when I was on tour in Spain with a choir. We had an organist wih us, and one day we were all in a church waiting for mass to begin. Our organist (another Tom!) was playing something suitably churchy, but then it started to sound a bit familiar. He had sidled into an arrangement of "I do like to be beside the seaside". The choir were in silent fits of mirth; the congregation didn't recognise the tune and didn't get the joke!

[Kirbstone]

Works a treat, SS. Touring abroad with a choir is one of Life's great pleasures. I identify with your organist, Tom, and have done that myself also, but alas not in so exotic a location.
Of course the local Spanish wouldn't know the tune, the joke was meant entirely for your (the visitors') consumption, I'm sure.

Thanks for the encouragement, Rick. Playing a Tracker is always hard work!

Tom

[crfriend]

One of our clients has a 70 rank tracker made by Rieger, in Austria. Considering the size, it plays nice.

That beast must have some pretty impressive mechanicals behind it! Something I'd like to see someday. What vintage is it?

[Kirbstone]

Ah well, Easter Day is here and I'm afraid it's dull and cool today, with rain & wind promised for tomorrow, bank holiday Monday.

I must have bored my poor MM to tears all this week going over and over my 'Easter Parade' fugue. I'll call it that, as it started off from the 'Lasst uns erfreuen' hymn at the end sounding very Bach/Handel-ish, but after a verse I broke into an unmistakably swing rythm with an invisible Fred Astair & ginger Rogers doing their thing (in my brain!).
It was well received and the Dean, who took the service remarked that my style was 'punchy', but in a nice sense.

Home and I could relax at last. MM had invited friends to lunch so it was all the trimmings and a really nice Easter Sunday Lunch with Turkey, Duck AND chicken....a 'Three-Bird' repast, so I felt it only appropriate to crack open a bottle of that extremely rare, hard-to-find German pale tincture: Liebfrau--Zilch,I think it was???
Nothing like a sweetish cheap plonk at midday to get tongues wagging.....

Anyway, I was under the impression that the first proto-computers built in Britain were the Bombe and later Colossus machines used for decoding at Bletchley Park during WW2, a lovely history of same I have just finished.

Tom K.