I remember when I was working at MD Anderson in the Biomathematics Department back in the ’80s. The systems adminstrator for the hospital was regaling me with tales of some of the old mainframe systems, namely the IBM 1620 (jokingly dubbed “the CADET”, as in “Can’t Add, Don’t Even Try”.) Someone in the department found that when they had a radio near the central core, the radio would emit sounds. After much experimentation, they found that they could write programs that would control the RF which in turn would produce crude “tunes”. A few of the notes were off, mainly due to the fact that calculations relied on addition lookup tables in memory, rather then using purpose-built circuitry.

To make a long story short, one day the systems administrator walked in to hear a song being played in almost perfect pitch. Curious, he asked the programmer there how he was able to correct the off tones. The programmer, proud of his accomplishment, stated that he simply altered select entries the addition tables, akin to making 2 + 2 = 7. The fact that this was a production machine in use by many departments didn’t faze him – he just wanted it to play a song perfectly!

Posted at 12:25 am on Jun 18th, 2008 by Captain Dubious

The sample of music is posted on the BBC website. It isn’t playing Baa Baa Black Sheep. Instead, it plays God Save The King(Queen), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and the above-mentioned In The Mood.

Posted at 1:38 am on Jun 18th, 2008 by Ed Minchau

That was pretty neat. Anyone know what made the actual sounds?
And, Ed, the article states it was “Bah, Bah, Black Sheep,” as there are a couple extra notes compared to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

Posted at 10:34 am on Jun 18th, 2008 by Josh

I find it interesting that the BBC article continually refers to the mark i as the world’s oldest computer or the forerunner of all modern computers.

always thought it was the difference engine, but hey, you never know.

Posted at 2:09 pm on Jun 18th, 2008 by RT (Panzer Time!)

Those old computers look so powerful. I feel like if Godzilla attacked our city, those computers would be able to launch a lethal counterattack.

Upon seeing pictures of old computers, I’m always brought back to my graduate days in the 1980s, with those first mac computers that came out. They were the coolest things, although they crashed every minute or so. It’s amazing how far mac and other computers have come, in terms of design, speed and power.

Posted at 9:49 am on Jun 19th, 2008 by Daniel E. Friedman