Stephenson:Neal:Cryptonomicon:6:pipe organs...(Electricinca)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

The organ is a wind instrument that evolved from the pan pipe and dates back as far as the 3rd century BC. Organs first arrived in Europe during the 8th and 9th centuries when they were exported from the Byzantine Empire to France. The organ has developed over time so that the modern pipe organ is now a large complex instrument with multiple manuals (keyboards) and pedals and possesses the greatest range of any instrument.

The sound is produced from many pipes of various sizes under the application of compressed air produced from bellows. The pipes are grouped into stops, which are ranks of pipes prepared to speak by a knob and correspond to a type of sound that the organ can make. Each stop consists of pipes that range in size from short to tall, the taller the pipe the lower the note. Each stop is arranged in parallel to other stops with pipes that produce the same note adjacent to that of another stop.

The 20th century saw the organ evolve again to become an electro-mechanical instrument. Those, such as the Hammond Organs as seen in large cinemas during the 1930s included sound effects and colour displays.

The word organ is also a euphemism for penis allowing for double entendres in the text of Cryptonomicon, about Lawrence Waterhouse playing the organ.

In addition to the obvious euphemism organs have a profound effect on and connection to the Waterhouse Savants typified by the vision of angels experienced by Lawrence upon first discovering the internal workings of a pipe organ.

The Baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach was written especially for the organ and is generally the classical music that is most purchased by geeks.

There is an interesting parallel between: 1) the scene of Lawrence's epiphany while playing the organ, in which "the top of his skull comes off" and he sees an exploded view of the entire workings of the organ and 2) his ancestor Daniel's important childhood memory of watching a church organ being obliterated by Knott Bolstrood. Lawrence's epiphany directly results in his successful creation of the digital computer, which project Daniel had begun before him.