The origin of Holy Toast . . .

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

With 90 glowing red hot valves . . . .
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Norwich-valve-organ-/180737146985
one can see why such beasties were the derivation of the term "toaster" as a form of abuse. Another one that I saw recently at Zurich referred to a digital instrument as a Pornomium . . .

Best wishes

DAvid P

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

And pretty good they sounded too.  I used to have an all-valve 2 manual Jennings organ - about the same number of valves as this one.  The Norwich console is better built than the Jennings though - and has proper drawstops.

Well worth restoring.

Every Blessing

Tony

[KB7DQH]

One of the first pieces of electronics I had the displeasure of troubleshooting and repairing as a child was such an instrument... a Baldwin "orga-sonic"...

All that heat tended to cook the resistors and capacitors in the tone generators and the result was most unmusical >:(  The least of the problems was keeping it tuned as the components would age, change value, and the oscillator would drift... Most problematic were "noisy" components which would create some intriguing instabilities to say the least. 

Its only redeeming feature was the touch-sensitive manuals :o ... The key would need to be fully depressed or the volume of the note would be noticeably diminished.

It finally found  a home at the local Vocational Skills Center's Electronics class, according to my father many students were excited about the prospect of getting it playable ;D

Eric
KB7DQH

[Holditch]

And I thought my Hammond L101 with a dozen or so valves was complex (in a retro sort of way!)

I'd imagine that you wouldnt need any form of central heating with 90 valves going!

A nice console to use as a basis for a new modern organ

Best Regards

Marc

[KB7DQH]

A really fun read on the Stephen Bicknell memorial website is an essay he wrote entitled "Toasters"...

http://www.stephenbicknell.org/3.6.52.php

;) ;D 8)

Eric
KB7DQH

[AnOrganCornucopia]

Seen it many times before and it never loses its ability to reduce me to tears of uncontrollable mirth  ;D

[Lucien Nunes]

Hmm. How and why did this Norwich appear in my workshop? Sure I don't know. Anyway now it's here I plan to rip out all the stupid old analogue spaghetti and use the console for a nice digital display it for comparison with my collection of Electrones. It's actually in quite good nick, a quick look over suggests it has not been hacked about too much. I haven't powered it up yet, there are a few minor things to sort out first.

Lucien