🚀 go-pugleaf

>From article <1990Apr30.1...@bath.ac.uk>, by exs...@bath.ac.uk (P E Smee):
> What's this got to do with computers?  Well, the only people I know of
> who owned them were programmers; and (I'm pretty sure) Prof Oleh
> Tretiak (MIT Computer Science) was involved in the company; and,
> anyway, it WAS sort of a 'switch programmed' computing device.
> 
> Anyhow, what I'm looking for is the name of a music making machine which
> I last saw one of about 1971.  It was a wedge-shaped thing with the
> (near vertical) front panel being about a foot square, and it had dozens
> of slide switches (vertical, I believe) and blinking lights.  It made
> fairly simple (at least as far as I ever mastered it) musical patterns,
> with the note sequences and rhythms being controlled by the settings of
> the myriad of sliders.  (Was probably an ur-synthesizer, though it didn't
> have a keyboard.)
> 
> Anyone remember what it was called?  Anyone able to provide a better
> description, to refresh my memory?
> -- 
> Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK
>  P.S...@bristol.ac.uk - ..!uunet!ukc!bsmail!p.smee - Tel +44 272 303132

I think you are referring to the "Muse" which was an early algorithmic form of
sequencer. There is a short, but good, description of it in Hal Chamberlin's
"Musical Applications of the Microprocessor".

Basically it consisted of a number of dividers and a 31 stage shift register
on one axis and musical intervals on the other. If you mail me I will look it
up and mail a detailed description to you. It's very easy to implement a
software emulation of it.

Andy Gray

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-Mail (UUCP)   AG...@axion.bt.co.uk ...!ukc!axion!AGray
Organisation	UNIX Operating System Support and Development Group
		British Telecom Research Laboratories (RT3134)
Snail Mail	BTRL, Rm 306 SSTF, Martlesham Heath, IPSWICH IP5 7RE, UK
Telephone	+44 473 646647
Quote		"If every time we told a lie, a little fairy died,
		 They must be building death camps in the garden!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>From article <1990Apr30.1...@bath.ac.uk>, by exs...@bath.ac.uk (P E Smee):
> What's this got to do with computers?  Well, the only people I know of
> who owned them were programmers; and (I'm pretty sure) Prof Oleh
> Tretiak (MIT Computer Science) was involved in the company; and,
> anyway, it WAS sort of a 'switch programmed' computing device.
> 
> Anyhow, what I'm looking for is the name of a music making machine which
> I last saw one of about 1971.  It was a wedge-shaped thing with the
> (near vertical) front panel being about a foot square, and it had dozens
> of slide switches (vertical, I believe) and blinking lights.  It made
> fairly simple (at least as far as I ever mastered it) musical patterns,
> with the note sequences and rhythms being controlled by the settings of
> the myriad of sliders.  (Was probably an ur-synthesizer, though it didn't
> have a keyboard.)
> 
> Anyone remember what it was called?  Anyone able to provide a better
> description, to refresh my memory?
> -- 
> Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK
>  P.S...@bristol.ac.uk - ..!uunet!ukc!bsmail!p.smee - Tel +44 272 303132

It was called the Muse, and the MIT prof I remember as the designer was Ed
Fredkin.  The front panel consisted of a matrix switch, and at least one row of
lights.  The lights reflected the state of the linear-feedback shift register
which was at the heart of the thing.  That's a shift register fed by the output
of a network of gates, whose inputs are drawn from various stages of the shift
register.  By using the matrix switch to change which stages are used for
inputs, you can change the pattern of the pseudo-random bit stream generated by
the shift register.  I believe other matrix switch locations chose which stages
controlled the pitch(es?) and clock rates of the sound generator, which was
just a square-wave down-counter, and the clock rate of the shift register.  The
whole thing was nicely finished and mounted in a good wooden box.  Lots of fun
at parties, especially with kids.

I took Fredkin's "Problem Solving" course in the EE dept.  It was the best
course I ever took (and he was the best teacher).  One of the assignments
(besides figuring out how to hold a Bicentennial Birthday Party where
*everyone* is invited, or using the CRC to find the ratio of photons to
molecules in a parcel of sea-level noontime air) was to learn the use of the
"logic lab", which was a briefcase-mounted kit of TTL logic goodies and patch
wires, including one of those matrix switches.  The first assignment was to
build a machine that would play a boogie-woogie bass line.  Later we built a
Muse-like device.  That's how I learned digital logic, and several CPU
architectures later, I'm still happily hooked on digital hardware.

For those interested in the life and times of Ed Fredkin (the only person ever
to become an MIT professor without having so much as a BS degree), I highly
recommend the paperback "Three Scientists and their Gods".  One of the
scientists is Fredkin.  It particularly talks about his efforts in digital
physics and cellular automata (partly with Richard Feynmann).  Fredkin believes
that once we look down deep enough, we will find that all physics can be
modeled most simply as a cellular automata, one with *very* fine cells and a
*very* fast clock.  Sorry, I don't remember the author or ISBN, but it is
currently in better bookstores in the US.  I could dig up my copy if someone
needs to know badly enough.  I was sorry, but not surprised, to read that he is
no longer a member of the MIT faculty.

Thanks for refreshing some fine memories.  Maybe my 9-year-old and I should
make a Muse.  I wonder how to find one of those matrix switches.....

-- 
Michael Butts, Research Engineer          KC7IT          503-626-1302(fax:1282)
Mentor Graphics Corporation, 8500 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton, Oregon   97005
!{ogicse,sequent,tessi,apollo}!mntgfx!mbutts              mbu...@pdx.MENTOR.COM
Any opinions are my own, and aren't necessarily shared by Mentor Graphics Corp.

mbu...@mentor.com (Mike Butts) writes:
>  Sorry, I don't remember the author or ISBN, but it is
>currently in better bookstores in the US.

>From the University of Illinois Library Computer System:
    001.539W935T   WRIGHT, ROBERT, 1957-
    THREE SCIENTISTS AND THEIR GODS$ 1ST ED.$ NEW YORK   88-2090

_____
cvk