In 1959, Wurlitzer came out with the Wurlitzer Sideman, a vacuum tube powered rum machine that used a clever series of electronic contacts on a wheel to make various drum noises. While it was way ahead of its time, Wurlitzer quickly stopped making the device after pressure from professional drummers, afraid it would put them out of a job.

From SynthGear:

Each row of contact points triggers a different drum sound, and each sound’s points are spread, in their own row, around the wheel in a pattern that generates a certain rhythm. The faster the wheel spins, the faster the pattern plays. Simple.

It’s completely tube based (even the sound generating circuits are tube), and has a great, crunchy sound. There is a slider that adjusts the wheel’s speed, and there are 10 preset rhythms. You can also individually trigger each sound via dedicated buttons and play the sounds yourself.

After the Sideman came out, the Musicians Association got pretty freaked out and put a lot of pressure on Wurlitzer to discontinue making the Sideman because they were worried about the unit putting drummers out of a job. I guess this was because it sounded so much like a real drummer…not.