Forgot your password?
Cyhist Dec. 30 1997 A
Document Actions
========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 11:02:11 -0500
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Jean Sammet <sammet@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: Music on the UNIVAC I
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
In the mid 1950s (and possibly earlier) music was played on the UNIVAC I through its speaker. The program sound was played through the computer speaker and was certainly useful in debugging because you could hear loops and if the code wasn't supposed to have major loops, it was clear there was a program error somewhere.
I know that at least the Air Force song, and Christmas carols were programmed. Sometime between 1955 and the end of 1957 these were played over the loudspeaker system at the Sperry Gyroscope plant on Long Island. There was a very incorrect (and sour) note in the Air Force song, and we all shuddered when it was played.
For those of you who don't know anything about Sperry Gyroscope it was a large plant doing work primarily for the Federal government and DoD in particular. Sometime in the 1956-58 time period,it merged with the Rand Corporation (which made the UNIVACs in Philadelphia and the 11xx in Minneapolis) to become the Sperry Rand Corporation.
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Jean Sammet <sammet@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: Music on the UNIVAC I
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
In the mid 1950s (and possibly earlier) music was played on the UNIVAC I through its speaker. The program sound was played through the computer speaker and was certainly useful in debugging because you could hear loops and if the code wasn't supposed to have major loops, it was clear there was a program error somewhere.
I know that at least the Air Force song, and Christmas carols were programmed. Sometime between 1955 and the end of 1957 these were played over the loudspeaker system at the Sperry Gyroscope plant on Long Island. There was a very incorrect (and sour) note in the Air Force song, and we all shuddered when it was played.
For those of you who don't know anything about Sperry Gyroscope it was a large plant doing work primarily for the Federal government and DoD in particular. Sometime in the 1956-58 time period,it merged with the Rand Corporation (which made the UNIVACs in Philadelphia and the 11xx in Minneapolis) to become the Sperry Rand Corporation.
______________________________________________________________________
