Two years ago, on June 28th, my birthday, I sat around the kitchen
table at Janet and Richard Tonnesen's house.  I had given myself
a gift: a trip to Dallas, Texas, to meet them and see their roll
perforating operation.  I took with me a very poorly hand-punched
roll for a John Smith busker organ.  After an evening viewing the
Perforating equipment, I decided that I wanted one of "those".

It has taken two years, a lot of correspondence and the assistance
of a large number of people, but I am pleased to announce that I now
have on-line a production perforator for John Smith rolls.

If it looks like a small version of Richard Tonnesen's machine, that
is because it is just that.  Over the last two years Richard has helped
me more than I can ever thank him for.  He even disassembled the
perforator so he could photograph parts that are not readily apparent
when viewing the machine as a whole.

Dave Saul, Ron Perry of Midiator Systems, Robbie Rhodes, Wayne Stahnke,
Don Teach, Richard Brandle and a host of other MMDers contributed their
time, knowledge and during times of stress, a calming influence.

I am sending photos of the machine to the MMD editor to post in the
MMD Pictures Archives.  The entire story was chronicled from beginning
to end with 44 pictures, on six web pages, starting with:

  http://www.txdirect.net/~egaida/perfer1.html

There is minor tweaking to be done, but I don't think that Richard
Tonnesen _ever_ stops tweaking his perforator.  The PD-1 controller
board performs flawlessly, as does Wayne Stahnke's "Punch" software
suite.

A warning to those who wish to follow.  The Octet PD1 board does not
work with the parallel port on at least two laptops that I wanted to
use.  It caused no end of problems because the board simply would not
"talk" to the computer nor the computer to the board.  It had to do
with the address of the printer port.  Ron Perry spent two hours on the
telephone, on his nickel, with my tech to try and solve the problem.
The next morning I hauled the electronics up to my office and connected
it to the desktop computer.  It has been running ever since.

If I have left out any names of those who helped, forgive me.  I have
had little sleep in the last three days and I am headed for bed -- now!

Ed Gaida

 [ See the photos at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Pictures/  -- Robbie