Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!spdcc!kaos!romkey
From: romkey@kaos.UUCP (John Romkey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Computer noises (was Re: Cray architecture)
Message-ID: <769@kaos.UUCP>
Date: 29 Mar 88 03:58:31 GMT
References: <7762@alice.UUCP> <418@ole.UUCP> <3216@phri.UUCP> <1574@osiris.UUCP> <25959@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Reply-To: romkey@kaos.UUCP (John Romkey)
Organization: Chaos; Somerville, MA
Lines: 17

In article <25959@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> lisper-bjorn@CS.YALE.EDU
(Bjorn Lisper) writes:
>Some historic computer trivia: the Swedish late-fifties computer BESK at
>some stage of its lifecycle had a loudspeaker connected to its instruction
>register. Different instructions gave a different sound, so you could hear
>it compute. A skilled operator could actually hear if the computer had got
>stuck in an infinite loop!

The Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 (a personal computer before PC meant
IBM) put out enough RF interference that it became popular among
TRS-80 hackers to put a small radio next to the machine to listen to
what it was doing. Some people tried to program them to play music
this way...
-- 
			- john romkey
UUCP: ...harvard!spdcc!kaos!romkey	ARPA: romkey@xx.lcs.mit.edu
      romkey@kaos.uucp			Telephone: (617) 776-3121