Mechanical organ

For example, the barrel organ is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs.

Since the 1950s, some instruments have been built using electronics to generate the sound, though still operated by mechanical or pneumatic means.

From the 1990s pipe organs have been built that are operated by MIDI rather than the earlier mechanical means.

Such organs only have a very limited repertoire, both in the number of musical selections that could be stored, and the length of tune that could be accommodated.

In the movie The Great Race (1965) Professor Fate, with bandaged thumbs, is shown pretending to play a mechanical organ.