[kkjkok]

The most interesting part of that is the WHO of spread spectrum... Hedy Lamarr (movie star) and George Antheil (composer). Very fascinating that two major Hollywood players were able to innovate in hard science/math. A different era.

I think the piano keys stuff was because the idea was semi-based around a player's piano (if I recall the legend from my DSP prof). The roll moves around and different bumps make the notes sound - a similar concept (visually at least) to coding a communications signal and having it jump all over frequency. 88 notes -> 88 frequencies. I wouldn't be surprised if the experimental equipment was a modified version of a player's piano. Very cool stuff, though I may be recollecting the story wrong. Wikipedia agrees about the movie star + composer bit at least.