"The historical method of intonating each string to itself results in "equal temperament" - an intonation formula abandoned by piano tuners in the 1600's."
This statement is simply not true, and highlight's Buzz’s apparent lack of understanding and knowledge of equal temperament. Not only was Equal Temperament never abandoned by piano tuners, it wasn’t actually fully adopted until Broadwood began using it it on all their pianos in the late 1800s. In fact, the piano as an instrument didn’t even exist in 1600, so there were no piano tuners! Keyboards did exist and at the time were tuned to a variety of temperaments including Mean Tone and Well Tempered, both of which were practical steps on the road to equal temperament, the evolution of which was dependent on the ability to calculate complex roots. It was the work of Simon Stevin in the late 16th century that allowed this to become possible.
Today all keyboard instruments except those specifically intended for the performance of early music are tuned to equal temperament by default.
