A legendary, lost synth has been re-created through meticulous research, engineering, and work. Here’s more from CDM:

The mathematician Rothenberg commissioned the instrument back in 1968. He’s described in the documentary as an early AI expert who also worked on missile trajectories. (Hey, US tech does always seem to come back to weapons.) His interest in pattern recognition algorithms, a key component of early machine learning research, evidently led him to new pondering about how to approach patterns in pitch. Bob Moog engineered a prototype for the result, and – leaving aside the usual ship of Theseus questions you get with this sort of project age and complexity, this is that instrument, reconstructed. Composer/instrument builder Travis Johns worked on rebuilding the device while visiting Cornell last year. Now we get to see and hear the results, with professor/pianist Xak Bjerken taking up the keys.