Saw Doug Henderson's item on the new Duo-Arts and noticed the remark
on the "rest of the players being frozen in time".

The good and bad news is that in the 1980's, when Universal Piano Co.
in Los Angeles was making 88-note players, I walked into Carty Piano
Co.  one day and Universal Piano had brought in a new prototype Ampico
to demonstrate.  It was in the same standard spinet case that their
88-note piano's were in.

I was enthused and was hoping that they were going into production.
I am not sure whether they felt the market was not there or the cost
of mass production was too much but only the one unit was produced.
I am not sure where it is today, but there is a newer 1980's Ampico
out in California someplace.

Larry Norman

 [ Sometime after the demise of Don Barr's Universal Piano Co.,
 [ player tech Randy Cox obtained the goodwill from Universal Piano
 [ and the tooling to produce the Ampico action.  I think 12 or 14
 [ small vertical pianos with the Ampico player were sold in the late
 [ 1980s, as the Randall player.  -- Robbie