Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

<<resistors all done! finishing up ICs!>>

Hey, I'm all for alternate controllers. You can do wonders with just foot
pedals.

About 20 years ago (gulp!) I made an "Invisible Keyboard" for the University
of Texas.
It consisted of 12 IR emitter/detector pairs in a 1" x 1" U-channel about 8
inches long.
The IR beams went across the channel about 3/4" from each other. They were
scanned
from "top" to "bottom" with a TTL state machine controlling a 10-bit DAC.
When you broke
a beam (normally by wiggling your finger in the trough) it latched a 1V/Oct
CV and a GATE
(er... S-Trig for my Moog IIIc, serial number 6!) . It was kind of dorky but
weird to run your
finger "in the air" and play little chromatic runs. I put ruler marks by
each beam so you could
"stab" the notes.

Nowadays, you got laser pairs that shoot 10m! I think JM Jarre has a "Light
Harp" doo-dad thingie,
and Roland has the D-Beam. Yeah, but I did it in 1979 so there!

Bizarre controllers were all the rage in say 1975-1981. Even Suzuki made
this weird-o electronic autoharp
thing.

Paul S.