1 Reply by nmplaces

(10 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I'm not sure if this is of interest or not, but I recently came upon the 1970 album "Voice of the Computer" from New Musical Horizons (https://www.discogs.com/master/955212-V … l-Horizons), which has a number of pieces by M.V. Mathews, although it doesn't specify which computer (presumably the IBM 7094 or system/360). 

However, the last song is of real interest.  Entitled "Swansong," it's a recording of the last sounds of the IBM 7094 at Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ (I believe the one used for the Music from Mathematics albums), done just hours before it was shut down. 

From the liner notes:  "Swansong (M. V. Mathews)
This piece was the swansong of the IBM 7094 computer at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N. J. The last sections were completed only hours before this excellent machine was decommissioned. But in addition to marking the end of a computer era, it is also the birth cry of interactive graphic composing. The score was drawn directly on the computer using a TV picture tube attached to the computer and a special light pen which allows lines to be drawn directly on the screen of the tube. As in Slider, these lines specified pitches, dura-tions, and loudnesses for the notes of a voice. However, in Swansong, the act of drawing these lines with the light pen communicated their meaning to the computer, so that as soon as the score was drawn the music could be played. Only a few minutes ensued between finishing the score and listening to the result. Hence, it was easy for the composer to revise and develop his ideas. The details of the process are published in Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 6. No. 2, 1968."

Go to forum: General Discussion

2 Reply by nmplaces

(4 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I watched this yesterday and it's great!  I think you effectively make the case that the mainframe era wasn't all business and that a bit of creative music-making fun was part of what we should remember about it too. Have you given other talks?  I'd love to see them.

Go to forum: General Discussion

3 Reply by nmplaces

(10 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Here's a couple more interesting gems.

"Computer Concerto" album by Pietro Grossi, recorded in Belgium in 1967.  Classical transcriptions and original pieces performed on a GE-115 mainframe (?--I think it's a mainframe). It was distributed by Olivetti, then the makers of that computer, to celebrate the new year (1968, I guess).  This appears to be the whole album, not tracked. The quality isn't great but it's still cool to listen to:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfiR79KZuf8

"Computer Music" album, also by Pietro Grossi, recorded in 1972 on an IBM system/360 mainframe.  Great quality recording:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwBE2a6ywuI

Here's info on Pietro Grossi:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Grossi

And IBM's ca 1984 DOS PC-speaker version of the "William Tell Overture" performed on an Epson Equity PC.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_4gpCKqxM8

Go to forum: General Discussion

4 Reply by nmplaces

(10 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Here's hoping some minicomputer tunes show up. I sent an email to someone who was running a Data General site asking if they knew anything about music on the DG, but no response yet. (Or maybe that IS the response: no.)

Classical Mosquito is a great 7" album of original neo-classical music done on a TRS-80 in 1983 by a man named Robb Murray.  He used software called Orchestra 80. He just went and got his own album published! There's info on the album at: http://www.trs-80.org/classical-mosquito/ and you can hear it at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0UuN8S_bfA.

Robb Murray has unfortunately passed away.  Sadly it doesn't seem that he left any other music, at least none that's publicly available.

Go to forum: General Discussion

5 Reply by nmplaces

(10 replies, posted in General Discussion)

That's really interesting--that there's a dearth of music done on minicomputers.  I could be mistaken, but my sense is that minis were targeted a lot at businesses and offered a lot of end-user applications, so maybe there weren't a lot of programmers on them creating music. I dunno, just a theory.  I'd love to be proven wrong and there be a cache of previously-unknown minicomputer music unearthed!

I worked on a Data General minisytstem in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mostly just doing backups and clearing stuck printer queues.  I don't remember any kind of music program on it, though it did beep when restarted (after the backups which took four hours and the whole system needed to be down for!)

These are in the PC era and maybe not 1-bit but I'm assuming you've seen Classical Mosquito and the album from the First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival?  They are wonderful!

Thanks again for this great list.  It made me aware of some really great treasures I never would have come upon otherwise.

Go to forum: General Discussion

6 Reply by nmplaces

(10 replies, posted in General Discussion)

This is really amazing. Thanks for this great timeline.  I spent a couple days going through every entry, following all the links, reading and learning. Great stuff.

Several links are dead now but Internet Archive saved me in almost every case.

Here are a couple items I'm aware of that might be of interest for the timeline, but you decide. They're in no order at all.

1). The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, USA, has a few pieces of music done on the PDP-1.  The sound is really clear and they are dated 2005 so it makes me wonder if they were done on the Museum's PDP-1 computer by Pete Samson himself, who is a docent there, using old tapes.  Not sure.  The 2005 date might just be the date they entered the item into their collection. 

https://www.computerhistory.org/collect … /102665180
https://www.computerhistory.org/collect … /102665179
https://www.computerhistory.org/collect … /102665178

2). This is a great video of an IBM 1620 Data Processing System at Arlington State College (now University of Texas at Arlington) in Arlington, Texas, USA, playing "Jingle Bells" in 1965.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqrA7jdj23U

A couple more photos of what looks to be the same IBM computer here:
https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/img/10002859
https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/img/20157746

BONUS the film and photos show the iconic IBM "Think" slogan sign, which was probably gifted with the computer by IBM.

3). Not 1-bit but apparently composed by a 1-bit computer (EDSAC ca 1960):
https://highnoongmt.wordpress.com/2020/ … irca-1960/

4). A video from the DigiBarn Computer Museum in California, USA, showing music playing on a ca 1962 LINC computer
https://archive.org/details/DigibarnLin … -music.mp4
More info:  https://www.digibarn.com/collections/sy … index.html

5). Elliott 803 computer music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hyNvSSzVUE as well as:
https://www.survo.fi/demos/#ex88

Speaking of the Elliott, one of the pages in the chronology is to an article by Andrew Herbert about his work collecting software for the Elliott 903 (article here:  https://www.computerconservationsociety … 72.htm#e). The link he includes in the article to a music file in his dropbox is dead, but I e-mailed him and he very kindly pointed me to this page:  https://andrewjherbert.github.io/Elliot … mentation/ which includes a link (under Music Programs) to what might have been the file.  It includes five pieces of music performed on his own music program, which he wrote to play music written on the other music programs he researched.

6). This one is amazing:  Christmas carols performed on a Honeywell 800 circa 1964, put on on a 45 by Honeywell.

https://www.computerhistory.org/collect … /102651526

If I come on any others I'll add to this list but I think that's it for now.  Hope they are useful.

Go to forum: General Discussion