Portable programming

Further to my last post:

Google has introduced an Android scripting environment that lets you code stuff for the Googlephone on the Googlephone. [...] It sits on the Android handset itself, giving coders the power to write and run scripts in Python, Lua, and BeanShell - without help from a PC.

– Google lets you code for Googlephones on Googlephones, The Register, 9th June 2009

Did I mention my next phone was going to be an Android?

Hurdy-Gurdy

I believe it was tehblahhh who was expressing disbelief that there was such an instrument as a "hurdy gurdy". I insisted that it did exist, and that it was some sort of crank-operated device, although I couldn't give any more details.

Well, this is a hurdy gurdy, and it's really quite a lovely instrument. An odd mixture of the mechanical and the organic, with a haunting, mournful tone.

(More hurdy gurdy: One with a 'buzzing bridge' for rhythm. One played with crazy-fast fingers.)

Apparently it was all the rage in medieval times, and then all but died out. What other instruments have been forgotten by history?