May 02, 2011

I didn’t really expect to see anything from the folks that work in our industries about the big wedding last week, but I was wrong. On Friday, an email release arrived from Duncan Crundwell talking about the “royal wedding control system.” That name had a certain familiarity to it, so I had to read the item.

Mr. Crundwell (who is British, as I recall) was pointing out the fact that his company, 1602 Group, built the control system for the pipe organ in Westminster Abbey. That system was installed during an update of the instrument in 1982 and upgraded in 2006. If you watched any of the coverage, it was certainly put to good use during the wedding. I interviewed him (Crundwell, not the prince) back in 2008 when I was working on an article, Ethernet Connectivity for Pipe Organs. If you want to be reminded of what that article discusses, it is still available online, albeit without some dramatic photos that appeared with its original print deployment.

If you’re into trivia, the organ has 9,147 pipes.

Personally, to commemorate the wedding, I watched a movie that celebrated Elizabeth and Philip's wedding, A Private Function.