

'Oldest' computer music unveiled [2008] - paulgerhardt
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7458479.stm

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paulgerhardt
A selection of PDP-1 Music is also available here:
<http://www.dpbsmith.com/pdp1music/>

If one goes to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View one can hear works
replayed on the actual hardware by the original hacker, Peter Samson. One can
listen to the recording here (scroll down to audio):
[http://pdp-1.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/index.php?f=theme&...](http://pdp-1.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/index.php?f=theme&s=5&ss=3)

The PDP-1 did not have a purpose built audio synthesizer; the four flip-flop
bits mentioned in the former link were actually programmed by controlling 4
LED/Lamps on the front panel and outputting their signal directly to an
amplifier!

"During the course of the restoration project, original MIT hacker Peter
Samson, rebuilt Spacewar! from source tapes to work with the control boxes the
team built, and to use the intensity feature of our display. He also read the
music data tapes, reverse-engineered their data format, and wrote a program to
play them."

------
teeja
There were plenty of programmable machines that made sounds in ancient history
... but recording was rare (until wire recorders anyway). But someone who beat
that 1951 recording may turn up yet.

