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Comment by josh2600 | Hacker News Reader

Wonderful piece, but the author is wrong about one point.

The idea that Piano rolls predate all other programmable storage medium is factually incorrect. Surely the Jacquard loom and its punch-card system, patented in 1801, pre-date the piano rolls of the 1900's?

Other than that, a great piece, but I would be remiss if I missed a chance to remind people of how amazing (and early) the Jacquard loom must've been at the time.

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Carillons (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillon) had control drums ('speeltrommel' is the better search term) in the sixteenth century (oldest one I could find is from 'before 1542') that allowed one to program in a melody to play. Example of programming at http://youtu.be/kHuvTKxZwr0

Well, there's a reported cylinder-based musical automaton in the 850 CE "Book of Ingenious Devices": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ingenious_Devices So it looks like mechanical musical instruments may have been the earliest to use storage media, even if not exactly piano rolls.

It's still just as amazing today, even more amazing that they are still in use!

And also that it was considered a diabolical device designed to steal from artists who deserved simply to make a living when it was introduced.

Good point. I probably could have done more research on that. The little that I DID do placed the piano roll at late 1800s. I'm not a historian. ;) I absolutely find all these ancient systems remarkable.

I think programmable medium must handle conditions. Anyway ancient water clock, antikythera, or even Stonehenge could classify as 'programmable storage medium'.

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