Comment by wongarsu
5 hours ago
Pianos have keys. And some telegraphs were outfitted with piano-like keyboards with one key per letter. Wikipedia has some pictures in the printing telegraph article [1]. So there is arguably a clear lineage from pianos to the modern computer keyboard.
Pianos however don't really have a concept of advancing the line or sending a recorded message.
player pianos existed with the concept of advancing are recorded messages. I forgot about them until you metioned them. The music box goes way back
Now I am searching to see if there were models of player pianos intended to punch tape.
I have never really thought about it but a player piano sort of implies it can only play the roll. If pressed I would guess that player piano rolls were cut by hand. I mean, I am sure they had tools to help them and probably fully automatic duplication machines. but did anyone play the piano to get a piano roll? or was it more like transcribing sheet music?