Thanks for your swift response,
At 15:58 12/02/02 -0800, Don Tillman wrote:
> > From: Nic Lewis <nic@...>
> > Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 20:33:24 +0000
> >
> > Firstly, please accept my apologies if the subject of Birotrons
> > is too off topic for this list, I hope, and believe it isn't. So
> > I'll go on anyway:-)
> >
>
>Talk of Birotrons would be a breath of fresh air. We're all ears!
Well here's a quick synopsis - warts 'n' all, I don't claim any of it to
be gospel - it is 25+ years ago after all and my memory may not be A1,
so any comments, corrections etc from the audience would be appreciated.
I worked for 'Birotronics' in 1975 -77, it was a fairly ramshackle
outfit, part of Wakeman's 'Complex7', a number of disparate companies
the mainstay of which was Packhorse Case Co - still going strong in
Peterborough UK. (Pete Robinson, who was running the show may
disagree here so if you're listening Pete, we remember the leather jacket)
The Birotron was an interesting device, the original Dave Biro prototype
consisting of 20(?) or so standard auto 8 track players in a flight case -
8 tracks being endless loops meant that there wasn't a limitation on the
length of play of a given note - something which I understand was a limitation
of Mellotrons of the day. Biro convinced Wakeman that it was worthy of
investment and a small but dedicated ;-) team set about turning it into a
saleable product. Here I could enter into an in depth technical treatise,
but that's probably for another day.
We made 13. (OK, there were orders for, some say, thousands - but
certainly the interest in it could have resulted in sales of many hundreds).
We were overtaken by 'solid state' technology - polymoogs came in, closely
followed by other devices, still analogue but not electromechanical- and
the Birotron died a death.
Sort of.
I've seen some web sites purporting to know of the whereabouts of some
of these machines, I'll post the urls if I can find them again and anyone is
interested, I also think I know of the last resting place of a couple of the
machines.
If the list recipients are interested, I'll contact the people that know
about this
and regale you with further information -
comments, brickbats, etc etc welcome
Regards,
Nic,
ex - Birotronics, Complex7, Abercrombie Avenue HW Bucks
(Thence to Station Road, in Loudwater HW)
Also Packhorse Case Co - there's another story or two!