ugly cars

Most of the cheaper synthesizer keyboard work that way (including all of mine), but there are also rather sophisticated systems that work much better:

That's possible but I haven't the problem on any of the keyboards I own or have repaired. The mechanisms are usually built so that all the switches rest on a solid metal frame, where misalignment of individual switches would require some form of mechanical damage. Both switches are also part of a single assembly, thus making the spacing between upper and lower contacts fairly stable. The only real problem I've had was when water (leaky roof) dripped into my keyboard, which turned into green slimy corrosion after a few weeks. Bottom view of Korg DSS-1 keyboard. and with switch assembly removed:

I've seen paper designs using inductive and capacitive proximity sensors. I suppose an optical cam would also work. However, that only takes care of the sensing and not the tactile feedback. I don't think there's any way of simulating the rather complex mechanical feedback of a real piano action. My Korg DSS-1 certainly doesn't do that very well, which may partly explain why I can play faster on the Korg than on the piano.

That depends on the piano. When I lived in Smog Angeles, my parents had a Knabe baby grand that had the stiffest action of anything I've ever tried. Playing it was difficult and tiring, but if I could play it, I could play on anything. I ended up giving it away when I left L.A.

Incidentally, I think you may be underestimating the cost of a 2nd hand Steinway piano.

Kind of reminds me of a "stink bug".

With their two-stroke engines they could leave a smell. There's clubs around them and you can still see some riding around, in better-than-showroom condition:

When you see one live it becomes apparent how tiny they really are:

But the ultimate microcar is still the old Messerschmidt. After the war they were no longer allowed to make aircraft, for obvious reasons, so:

They are aimed at rather different effects, and I'm not sure that they'd work better as piano keyboards.

Switches aren't tight tolerance devices. Mechanical contact is very well defined, but where the bits of metal are when they contact is rarely closely specified.

But not all that well-defined from one key to the next.

There are thoroughly instrumented real pianos used for research, and some with programmable actuators on each key which are real reproducing pianos. They are extraordinarily expensive,

Brent Gillespie would beg to differ

He also put together an 8-key "calliope" keyboard - the recycled linear motor he was using were too wide for a piano keyboard.

The simulation does require quite a lot of computational power to run in real time, but my guess is that an Analog Devices Blackfin processor per key would do it. And you probably don't need to simulate all the 14 to 18 moving parts in a piano-key action to get the tactile feedback good enough.

The German Steinway has a notoriously heavy action. I didn't find it tiring.

I probably paid too much for my - new - Roland HP330e when I bought it in the Netherlands

My piano teacher paid about 45,000 euro for her second-hand German Steinway, which is more than your e-bay prices, but she was after a good example. It's more than ten times what I paid for my machine - I was setting an order of magnitude rather than posting price information.

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Speaking of smell and style, how about this pie-scented beauty? (a wood-burner)

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Not in my experience. One of my intervertebral disks didn't just bulge in 1988, it burst. The NMR scan taken some six weeks later showed bits of cartilage all over the place, and the back surgeon who reviewed the images solemnly assured me that the bits of cartilage would never go away, and would have have to be removed by an operation - which he could offer me immediately, if I elected to approach him as a private patient.

I elected to rely on the - cheaper - National Health Service route, and when - six moths later - I was offered the operation (to be done by the same guy) I suggested that I'd recovered enough not to need the operation, and he didn't even bother to try to persuade me that I was wrong. My medically qualified younger brother later told me that UK surgeons were much less likely to operate than their US equivalents, and the outcomes were much the same. Since the operation is expensive in itself, leaves you stuck in bed for about six weeks and has an appreciable risk of leaving you worse off than before the operation, the more conservative British approach has a lot to recommend it.

My back has been fine ever since. So were my uncles and my father's. Six weeks of bed rest was enough.

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"pine-scented," that is.

James

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(snort!)

I was wondering if it burned those floaty-pie things...

Mark L. Fergerson

Butterscotch?

Touche!

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so:

It's kind of a hoot. There's a video of it in action here, in mid- article:

That is one ugly car. Looks like a homebuilt on some scrapyard chassis. I wonder how the guy got it registered.

Then again, I've use this wild thang here in our driveway:

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a bit safer than something like this:

if it has got the power you could change the wedge to do it quicker:

-Lasse

-Lasse

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some type of two-stroke oil smells great, reminds me of a trip to the race track

I believe it is castor oil that give some oil a very distinct "sweet" smell

-Lasse

The chainsaw is way too slow. This is how it's done in redneck country:

Yes, like the smell we have in the air after one of those Stearman biplanes too off. When you fly in the front seat it is quite normal to have oil splatters from the big radial engine on the T-shirt. It's not considered dirt but a badge of honor.

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amazing what dangerous things you can find on youtube, how about this:

-Lasse

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this:

Yikes!

The Unicorn splitter was actually really sold as a product. But I could imagine the company was drowned in lawsuits. If that thing ever jams you'd have to be a very fast jumper to get out of the way.

Dirt on one's shirt, sure, but what about the dirt one gets on the seat of one's pants as a result? :)

Tim