Hathaway & Associates is a nothing more than a convenient and arbitrary name
for a loose collection of mutually independent people who may, from time to
time, voluntarily associate under what may seem to be a generic title for a
common interest, good, and goal. It is not a legal entity, nor does it, of itself,
represent any person or entity, or conduct any type of business, commerce, or
make or cause to be made any binding representations, commitments, or contractual
arrangements. There is no facility, office, staff, assets, or anything else;
not even a mailing address. Any and all persons, whether actual, implied, or
construed as associated with Hathaway & Associates, this site, and/or the author
of this site are to be considered as independent entities and, as such, any
arrangement with any one particular individual shall not in any way bind, effect, or
reflect upon any other individual.
Mission Statement
The purpose of this web site is to display a variety of topics in a visually
simple and easy to navigate manner. In line with this thinking, the underlying
technical structure of this web site has intentionally been kept as simple as
possible, while still meeting certain technical standards of excellence, function,
accessibility, and platform compatibility.
General Policy
This web site does not attempt to collect, market, or otherwise use any visitor information. Any contact information shared or referenced within this site is either (1) public information available elsewhere, or is (2) specifically authorized by the person or entity mentioned. Some minimal technical information is known to be collected by the Internet Service Provider that hosts this web site, so as to provide statistical visitor information.
External web sites accessed through links located under the headings of Friends of Hathaworld and/or Mechanical Music are wholly independent entities who are provided
a link within this web site solely as a courtesy. There is no commercial
affiliation or interaction of any kind, and therefore any mention and/or representation
suggested within these externally independent web site are not to be construed as any kind or type of legal or financial relationship. This web site and its author is not
responsible for the policy, actions, or decisions by any implied or the above referenced
external entities.
Privacy Policy
This web site does not attempt to collect, maintain, process, market, or share any visitor information. Any contact information shared or referenced within this site is either (1) public information available and/or advertised elsewhere, or is (2) specifically authorized by the person or entity mentioned.
Some minimal anonymous statistical information is known to be routinely collected by the Internet Service Provider hosting this web site, such as browser type, referring URL, site file access information, etc. This information is used to analyze usage trends and provide visitor statistics, which is occasionally accessed to analyze and improve site layout and performance. No "cookies" are set or used by this web site, but it is possible that the hosting service unbeknownst to us may independently choose to set a cookie for reasons entirely unknown to the authors of this web site.
Errors and Omissions
Diligence and a best effort to minimize inaccuracies within this site is ongoing, but, under no circumstances shall there be any guarantee or warrantee, either stated, implied, construed, or otherwise inferred, regarding the authenticity, correctness, or usefulness of any material contained within this web site. Anyone using and/or relying upon any information contained within this site does so at their own risk, and without recourse or remedy.
Evolution of This Site
This website began circa 1997 using Microsoft’s FrontPage HTML editor and website administration tool (1996-2006) and it still retains some design elements from those early days. Then, once Microsoft’s new Web Expression software (2006-2012) replaced FrontPage, the convoluted code automatically generated by FrontPage was meticulously untangled and simplified. Then, when Web Expression was no longer being maintained and fell out of favor, the html code was ported over to accommodate Adobe’s Dreamweaver CS6`software, and from there on to the latest Dreamweaver version in Adobe’s Creative Cloud series, where it remains to this day. All HTML coding and maintenance is still done by hand and is currently optimized for the HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) standard. There are no behind the scenes connected databases, nothing fancy or complicated to maintain, just plain and simple hand-written and maintained HTML5 code, and so if the website seems quaint or old-fashioned that is because it is, and there is no inclination to change its underlying simplicity.
After many years of intense private and commercial interest in mechanical
music, mainly between the years of 1950 to 1980, other endeavors took precedence.
Then, in 1997 a resurgence of excitement regarding automatic music machines
brought about a renewed fervor to write about and further research and share
some of the stories about many of my old mechanical music friends. Thus, this
web site came into existence as a way of sharing my rekindled enthusiasm for
automatic music, and also because of my love of working with computers as a
communicative tool for sharing certain aspects of my life with others.
When this site commenced operation in 1997, it was primarily dedicated to
research and data collection in regards to the J.D. Philipps Pianella / Wurlitzer
PianOrchestra line of self-playing automatic orchestras. The PianOrchestra research
project, as it was then called, was originally a strictly academic affair, and,
as such, was committed to acquiring historical information and related stories
about the companies and the people associated with various automated music machines,
adding to what is already known and then sharing that information with historians
and other interested parties. Later, certain aspects of the historical work
evolved into making available tangible items, such as a limited series of
educational custom audio compact disc albums of assorted, outstanding examples
of automatic musical instruments, which included coin-in-the-slot pianos, orchestrions,
dance organs, and fair organs. This audio activity was discontinued in early 2005.
Beginning in 1998, a separate section devoted entirely to studying, understanding, and
applying (what I have arbitrarily termed) the fundamental Mechanics of Consciousness was added, with the intention of suggesting ways the knowledge could be put
to use in practical everyday ways. This material has periodically been made available, and is currently unavailable.
In April of 2003 this site was basically closed and the mechanical music
history pages were transferred over to the Mechanical Music Press web site, where they reside to this day. A simple
banner page with a link to the Mechanical Music Press website was maintained
after the closure, and then a few months later this simple link page was formalized
as part of a navigation menu and the Mechanics of Consciousness material was
upgraded and reinstated on an interim basis.
In January, of 2007, a complimentary web section was added for the Hathaway
Ranch Museum, which is a non-profit organization with limited funds. As of October 17, 2013, this section was permanently removed, because the HRM had created and made public its own independent web site.
Contact Information
Please send comments and/or problem reports regarding this web site to the Webmaster at:
