What is "pianet"

Pianet \Pi"a*net`\, n. [Cf. Pie magpie.] (Zo["o]l.)

1. The magpie. [Written also pianate, and pyenate.]

2. The lesser woodpecker. [Obs.]
   --Bailey.

n. 1 (context obsolete English) The magpie. 2 (context obsolete English) The lesser woodpecker.

The Pianet is a type of electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. The designer of the early Pianet models was Ernst Zacharias, basing the mechanism closely on a 1920s design by Lloyd Loar. The Pianet was a variant of the earlier reed-based Hohner electric piano the Cembalet which, like the Pianet, was intended for home use. Hohner offered both keyboards in their range until the early 1970s. The Pianet production consisted of two distinctly different mechanism groups with characteristically different sound. The first group, lasting from introduction to 1977, had ground stainless steel reeds, a pick-up using variable capacitance, and leather faced activation pads. The second group from 1977 until the end of production used rolled spring-steel reeds, electro-magnetic pick-ups, and moulded silicone rubber activation pads.