[ Robert Lesko wrote in 160414 MMDigest --

> I recently purchased a MIDster Punch and I would like to know if
> anyone can tell me how to add MIDI files to the original Bob Essex
> MIDster program.

You are asking about a home-built computer peripheral designed over ten
years ago, and intended for use with computers of that era, although
the machine you bought might have been finished more recently.

As far as I can tell, Bob Essex went to the great organ rally in the
sky in the spring of 2010.  At least he stopped posting to band organ
groups about then.  I also can not find his name on the Fair Organ
Preservation Society "organ availability list" on the FOPS website
http://www.fops.org/  There is still some material about the MIDster
at http://www.bobessex.co.uk/5.html 

I had the pleasure of meeting him at a rally in Widnes, England, in
2006, and seeing his home-built MIDI organ 'King Solomon' as well as
one of his mechanical bag-piper machines, 'AngusTurragh,' in a static
display at the Dorset Steam Fair.  I later bought a set of MIDster
plans, but, for several reasons, gave up before I completed it.

Did you get the plans and software package with the punch?  If you
did, you have the information needed, and few others in the world
will remember enough to help you without the plans.  The software will
probably be on a floppy disk.  Do you have the skill to write the
simple DOS scripts required?

Do you have the required computer?  The MIDster software was written
to run under DOS, and requires an old-fashioned parallel printer port.
To the extent that it runs under Windows, it probably requires a
version which has a DOS window -- say Win 3.1 or maybe Win 95.

There were some MMD posts about the machine between 2000 and 2005:

http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/Digests/200101/2001.01.26.06.html 
http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/Digests/200004/2000.04.06.05.html 
http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/Digests/200512/2005.12.15.07.html 

Wallace Venable