John and Craig have put their fingers on a problem that I also worry
about with our organ roll scanning program.  Although they do not
address it directly, it still exists with any roll scanning project.

This residence organ roll scanning program was started to preserve,
as much as possible, the fine music on the player pipe organs.  The
organ rolls are much more rarer and in even greater near term-danger
of vanishing forever.

Look, the computer is simply a data handling and processing device,
so how it does the job is dependent on the operating system and
programming.  Indeed this changes almost on a monthly basis, and often
with bad programming by Microsoft, if you use a PC and not a Mac.

The problems we have in trying to get scanned piano rolls to play on
the customized Allen theater organ is not one of having to find the
appropriate file format, but one of getting the stupid computer to
recognize it and put it [the music roll data file] into a MIDI format
the organ wants to see.  This has _not_ been easy, and we are still
fighting it.  I want the organ rolls to play on WindPlay and the
programming will not presently permit this.

Is it not possible for someone in the group to take any modern computer
platform and write a stable program _just_ for scanning and playing
back rolls in one of the standard MIDI formats, and nothing else?

Strip the computer of all programming and install a simple new system
that will process the data coming from the scanners and simply record
it in a format that can stand for decades.  Only retaining enough of
the original operating system of the basic computer program to get the
infernal device up and running and ready to receive data.

I think this can be done, and I certainly hope that some of our
computer literate members will take up the task and write just such
a program for the rest of us.  I, for one, will gladly pay any amount
for just such a program on a self installing CD or flash card.

Jim Crank

 [ Jim's computer transcriptions of music rolls are okay; see
 [ http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/200702/2007.02.27.04.html
 [ I think what he needs is a computer equivalent of a keytop player
 [ for an organ console!  Converting the registration data from one
 [ organ to another is still a knotty problem.  -- Robbie