Kind of Off Topic, Robotics related to Pianocorder -- Pianocorder Forum

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1], 2 ]

Subject: Kind of Off Topic, Robotics related to Pianocorder

Author:
Nick Delgado

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 03:28:23 09/19/05 Mon

Just wanted to say hello, and introduce myself.

I am not a pianocorder fan per se, but have just found out the the pianocorder may be the solution to a problem that plagues a whole other user forum I belong to. I am one of many fans of an animatronic show called "The Rock-Afire Explosion" that was located in ShowBiz Pizza Places restaurants in the 1980's.

How this related to the Pianocorder is as such, some of us have acquired characters from this show, and are trying to re-construct the control system that controls the robots. We had been under the impression that the makers of the show had invented its control system, and therefore it would be impossible to duplicate it. As it turns out, one fan on a lark did a search on solenoid control boards, and found that the main circuit boards on the Pianocorder looked remarkably similar to the original controller for the show.

Sure enough, he located a board, plugged it in, and got the show to work! So now it is our belief that the makers of this show either bought some stock material from someone who supplied it to the superscope company, or just copied the work of the people making the Pianocorder.

If anyone is still reading this, what I would like to know is if superscope used some sort of off the shelf controllers, or if the robot manufacturers stole a proprietary system. And also of course, we would like to know if there are still people repairing, and or making replacement boards for these units, as they would be of great use to us.

I may drop by from time to time to scan these boards, so sorry for my off-topic subject, but I greatly appreciate any help that I could get in this manner!

Thanks,

Nick Delgado

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Kind of Off Topic, Robotics related to Pianocorder	Mark Fontana	23:13:45 09/20/05 Tue
Re: Kind of Off Topic, Robotics related to Pianocorder -- Nick Delgado, 19:45:54 09/22/05 Thu Re: Kind of Off Topic, Robotics related to Pianocorder -- Mark Fontana, 21:20:34 09/22/05 Thu Re: Kind of Off Topic, Robotics related to Pianocorder -- Nick Delgado, 22:57:03 09/22/05 Thu Re: Kind of Off Topic, Robotics related to Pianocorder -- Mark Fontana, 23:20:26 09/22/05 Thu