Scalatron, Lambdoma,Administrivia

I think 3 Generalized Keyboard Scalatrons were built: George Secor's,
Paul Rapoport's and Joel Mandelbaum's (at Queen's College, NYC). A
larger number of 2-manual regular scalatrons were also sold, but, alas,
not enough for Motorola to continue supporting it. Also, the inventor,
George Harasek, is now deceased.

Erv Wilson collaborated with Secor on the keyboard, which is basically a
12- column Bosanguet pattern.

Tom Reed, who now runs the Music Notation Modernization Association,
promoted the von Janko and other new keyboards in his journal Muzika 6-6
Bulteno, in English and Esperanto. He'd likely to be a good source for
more information on keyboard design as well as new notations, mostly for
12-tone music.

Doug Keislar is also associated with the MNMA.

As for the Lambdoma, I don't think the modern form can be traced farther
back than to Albert (Adalbert?) von Thimus in the 19th Century (and Hans
Kayser, more recently). Plato's Lambdoma was a numerical explication of
the division of the World Soul by squares and cubes of 2 and 3, though
IIRC, one can derive the Dorian diatonic mode in Pythagorean tuning from
the array of numbers.

Whatever one might make of Kayer, von Thimus, McLain, et al.'s tables
and charts, they have a certain fascination that IMHO can serve to
inspire new music.

BTW, does anyone know how to temporarily suspend mail delivery from
onelist. I may be away for 2-3 weeks this winter and would like to be
able to get the back Digests when I return.

--John

Hi John (and Happy New Year everyone!),

At 10:57 AM 12/31/98 +0000, John Chalmers <jhchalmers@UCSD.Edu> wrote:
>BTW, does anyone know how to temporarily suspend mail delivery from
>onelist. I may be away for 2-3 weeks this winter and would like to be
>able to get the back Digests when I return.

I think you can use the "No Mail" option. I've never used it, but here's
what ONElist's web site says about it:

The No Mail option is useful if you are going on vacation and
don't want emails to pile up while you are gone. By clicking on
the Set No Mail link in the User Center, you will turn off mail
delivery for that list. Mail will not be saved while you are
not receiving email.

When you get back, you can go to the "Archives" option to get the old
digests. (And don't forget to turn the Mail option back on.)

Have a good vacation or whatever!

--Mark
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