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When the digital organ project was first described to me by Ralph Deutsch in late 1968, I had an erroneous impression. I thought after the design was completed and the MOS/LSI devices started to roll off Rockwell's production line, all we would have to do at Allen was connect them together per Rockwell's instructions. Obviously, I had an overly simplistic view of what it would be like to actually work with this new technology in our factory. I really believed that any problems related to the new technology would be handled by Rockwell; the rest we could handle ourselves. As Rockwell worked to get the prototypes together toward the end of 1970, I became more wary of the problems we might encounter getting the new technology into production.
Realizing that we had no one in our organization who really understood digital electronics, we decided to beef up our own, in-house, technical capability by hiring engineers with digital backgrounds. By mid-1971, we were successful in finding three engineers with the appropriate technical backgrounds who also were interested in working in the brand-new field of digital electronic musical instrument engineering. And there was plenty for them to do. We encountered a host of technical problems when we began to redirect some of our production operations toward building a few, selected organ models based on the new digital technology. I soon realized that getting daily help from Rockwell—3,000 miles away—was not practical. So, our three digital engineers were immediately pressed into service as they came aboard and received considerable "on-the-job" training.
I also braced myself for the impact the change-over would have on the general morale in our factory. For example, I was concerned about the feelings of our employees, many of whose jobs would be radically changed by the new technology. A large number of the skills which were diligently developed and proudly practiced by our employees over many years in an "analog" world simply did not apply to the new "digital" world. For example, the analog oscillator organs were built like the early televisions. Hundreds of electronic components had to be wired together individually. In contrast, the new digital organ was built like a modern computer. A relatively small number of micro-miniature, digital devices, each containing more than a thousand transistors, had to be mounted and soldered to high-precision, printed circuit boards. In other areas of specialization, such as tuning and voicing, jobs were also going to be dramatically affected. The analog oscillator organs required a substantial amount of manual tuning and voicing. With the new digital organ, the tuning and much of the voicing was controlled with such accuracy that very few manual adjustments were needed. In retrospect, considering the magnitude of the task, the transition from the old, analog-oriented job structure to the new, digital-oriented job structure was handled extremely well by all the people affected by the change-over. As the new production methods were gradually put into place, our people were reassigned to learn the new skills required.
Because of all the obvious start-up problems we were going to face as well as the potential for many unforeseen problems associated with getting the new technology into production, I had decided to limit the introduction of the digital organ to just a few models in the middle of our model lineup. Some of these models were designed around one Rockwell system as originally planned; some other models were actually designed using two of the Rockwell systems. At some point along the way, I had thought of using more than one system in an organ in a kind of building block fashion. The idea proved to be quite effective.
We began building organs using two systems by simply using two separate sets of key contacts—one for each system. My ultimate plan was to extend this building block idea beyond two systems; however, at first we didn't have the means to key more than two systems in one organ. So, as we approached the official public unveilings of the new technology in the summer of 1971, we had a small lineup of models—the largest using two systems.
At this point, I should mention that the "newness" of the technology presented us with another problem—what to call the product. During the development, the term "digital organ" was generally used to describe the project. Of course, scientists and engineers knew what the term "digital" meant and could readily understand the significance of the term "digital organ." However, I knew I could not expect the same understanding of technical terminology from laymen. In reviewing all the technical names that could be applied to the new instruments, I finally chose the term "computer organ." I reasoned that most people had at least heard the term "computer" and knew it had something to do with accurate and fast mathematical calculations. In short, I knew the term "computer organ" was an apt, readily-understood description of our new product—a system which produced musical tones by performing torrents of mathematical computations on numbers at blazing speed.
On May 20, 1971, the "Allen Computer Organ" was revealed to the press at a press party hosted by Rockwell at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Although the actual public showing didn't occur until June, the press party certainly generated substantial positive publicity. Our product was correctly characterized as a "major industry breakthrough."
Finally, in June, the new instruments were put on display to the trade at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Show in Chicago. Our dealers had been given a private showing the day before. The reaction is well summarized by the following excerpted comments about the show from ERA, a music-trades publication of that time.
ORGANS
Allen's computerized church organ, which will soon become a line of several models, amounts to a technological "breakthrough". The product simply defies evaluation! There can be little doubt but that this new concept will enable Allen to completely dominate the church organ business in the early future. In a nutshell, this product will enable an ordinary church organist to almost approach "artist" capability. The product was a devastating success!
Indeed, the Allen Computer Organ sent waves through the electronic musical instrument industry. It also set precedent in a more general way. It shared the limelight, in 1971, with the Sharp calculator as being the world's first, digital-based consumer product offered for sale. I must admit I enjoyed all the fanfare, but I knew what counted most was how our dealers and customers felt about the new development. Therefore, I was especially happy about our booking a record number of orders at the NAMM Show of 1971.
The effect of our success on our competitors was predictable. Most of them were expecting the arrival of a digital organ product from Allen. Keep in mind that they were offered the concept by Rockwell, and they all declined. They didn't know exactly what to expect, but obviously they would not want the new technology to succeed. In view of the tremendous acceptance we did actually enjoy, several competitors quite ruthlessly "bad mouthed" the Computer Organ in hopes of frightening customers away. This touches on some of the more unsavory aspects of our industry which I'm saving for another chapter. So, suffice it to say here that the efforts to defame the Computer Organ were rather disturbing; but, in the end, the truth and overwhelming superiority of the new digital technology prevailed.
The distinction of being the very first customer to buy an Allen Computer Organ has to go to St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Easton, Pennsylvania. We "quietly" sold that one during the spring of '71 in order to get some field experience and customer response as soon as possible. The response was excellent.
During the following year, sales of the new product accelerated, and in September, 1972, the Allen Digital Computer Organ was given an award by Industrial Research magazine as being one of the best one hundred new products of that year. This was the first time a musical instrument was honored by such an award.