The MIDster Punch system, plans for punching your own music rolls
and books directly from MIDI files, has now completed eight
successful years since I first published it at the beginning of
1999.  Since then, hundreds of machines have been built, but alas,
I suspect a great many MIDster projects have fallen by the wayside
for various reasons.

One of these reasons might be the lack of detailed plans, or more
likely that the circuit board is a bit daunting for those with no
electronics experience (although it is fair to say that the little
electronic circuit board has the very minimum of components and
complexity in order to bring it within the reach of most hobbyists).

But now help is at hand.  Reuben Grieger of Victoria, Australia,
has produced a fine set of detailed plans for building a MIDster
roll punching machine based on my design.  The 100+ pages of plans
are on a CD-ROM in Adobe PDF format.  The plans also include the
layout drawing of a printed circuit board.  Reuben also sells the
actual printed circuit board.

Hopefully, this might help to revive some of the MIDster projects
that have been "resting" or abandoned.  For prices and shipping
details contact

  Reuben Grieger
  rgrieger@aapt.net.au.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]

A happy and successful New Year to all MMDers, and "Keep Punching!"

Bob Essex
bobessex@aol.com