Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!unisoft!gethen!farren
From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computer noises (was Re: Cray architecture)
Message-ID: <850@gethen.UUCP>
Date: 3 Apr 88 05:33:35 GMT
References: <7762@alice.UUCP> <5029@nsc.nsc.com>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: There's Unix there in Oakland
Lines: 35

In article <5029@nsc.nsc.com> curry@nsc.UUCP (Ray Curry) writes:
>I'll tell you how old I am.  When I started college, they were ripping out the
>vacuum tube IBM 7xx.  The little computer (1620 I think) that was used to input
>programs to the IBM had a combination of core and relays that would produce 
>audible sound without the external radio.  Lots of programs existed around the
>lab that would produce a variety of music when run.

My three fave computer noise stories:

I.  The line printers used with some earlier IBM systems had (as many
 still do) bands of type which continuously rotated, with hammers that
 were fired when the appropriate letter came by.  By selecting the output
 carefully, you could get the hammers to fire at a fixed frequency, and
 by varying the output you could change this frequency.  The story goes
 that someone programmed the thing to play the Star Spangled Banner,
 with the added fillip that on the "Rockets' Red Glare" passage, all of
 the doors to the automatic tape drives would flip open.

II.  Processor Technology's SOL computer had a Star Trek game which,
 if you put an AM radio next to the CPU, would generate the appropriate
 sound effects for the game - phasers firing, klaxons wailing, etc.

III.  A computer used in the navigation center for a Polaris sub, with
 an amplifier/speaker connected to the high order bit of its accumulator
 and appropriate software for generating tones, won the ship's talent
 contest for its rendition of "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head".

Number one may be apocryphal, but sounds reasonable.  Numbers two and
three are definitely real.

-- 
Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
        unisoft!gethen!farren | it.  You may want to change your mind someday."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame