A better translation for the last one (the sign) would be more like "Whatever the goal of your desires was, the 1401 does not allow everything to be done with her/it" Also, there is a small "joke" on the first sign: "Weitere Auskunft ... gibt Schalter B" -- The word "Schalter" in German is not only used for a switch but also for a counter in a bank or something. So the translation would be both "Further information about her qualities can be inquired by switch B" and "...can be inquired at counter B"

@galier2

6 жыл бұрын

Indeed, that the pun is intentional is given away by the formulation "Weitere Auskunft" which is typical for the "counter" sense but would be a little less in context for a computer.

@Clancydaenlightened

5 жыл бұрын

I guess for English the best fit would be: Whatever your intended desires are, the 1401 isn't capable of allowing you to do everything you want.

@KingSlimjeezy

5 жыл бұрын

Took me a minute but I can't believe I got it

@VintageTechFan

5 жыл бұрын

@@Clancydaenlightened Don't think "capable" is very fitting here, since it would of course be capable to print that inappropriate "ASCII" (yeah .. isn't ASCII)-art. "(jemand) lässt nicht alles mit sich machen" quite strongly implies a deliberate denial, so .. "won't allow you to do that to/with her/it" maybe?

@wuloki

4 жыл бұрын

@@VintageTechFan "(Jemand) lässt nicht alles mit sich machen" ... I'd translate it roughly as "you'd better not mess around with (somebody)". That's not word-for-word of course.

1:05 “For the good of academic research” > room full of old wise men here to experience the good of academics for research purposes.

4:29 this is probably the oldest function prank I’ve ever seen preformed on a machine. How funny it will be when future historians try to play this program only to fake it being ‘jammed’, opening up the lid and getting flashed. -1960s >Present Day...

@predawka

2 жыл бұрын

present time

@samsunguser3148

2 жыл бұрын

😵

@mockenmeyer

2 жыл бұрын

@@predawka and you don't seem to understand...

This is all even more impressive when you consider the fact that the guy who first wrote that program all those years ago did it all with one hand.

I was a student operator on a 1401 in college. I had an opportunity to see Edith in all her glory so I looked at the cards and figured out which ones were needed to just print out the final version. Wrote a Autocoder command which would read the card images from RAMAC and immediately send it to the printer. Posted the “try this” to the bulletin board. Got me an invitation to the Professors office where I was reminded about the proper use of equipment and my job duties. Also was complemented on my initiative which should be pointed toward more business related goals. Guess I should have charged for using the command. Anyway this brought those memories all back. This were back when “PC” was not even a thing!

“I don’t even see the code, all I see is blonde, brunette, redhead…”

@Captain_Vitorio_Muscovy

3 жыл бұрын

So... is this a Matrix reference or just a coincidence?

9:45 Translation: "We're writing to let you know that we're updating our privacy policy in preparation for the EU's General Data Protection Regulations ("GDPR") which will go into effect on May 25th, 2018."

so, the first computerized waifu?

@Spookspek

5 жыл бұрын

Sophie is best girl

@povnw8985

5 жыл бұрын

NOTICE ME SENPAI!!!!!! 👯

@comicsansgreenkirby

2 жыл бұрын

pfffff

@su-25frogfoot74

2 жыл бұрын

Is that the confederate flag int the background of your PFP?

@richardyao9012

Жыл бұрын

For what it is worth, that is pronounced “wife”. The u is silent.

The author of Sophie was a better ASCII artist. :)

@lwilton

6 жыл бұрын

If you want to see some really good ascii art, see if you can find any old newsgroup posts by Mike Jittlov from the 1980s. I guess that would be Google Groups these days. He was one talented guy.

@Thomas-im6ft

5 жыл бұрын

This computer predates ASCII.

@BaNNshEy

5 жыл бұрын

ASCII encoding has been around since telegraphs and teletypes

@brentboswell1294

5 жыл бұрын

You mean EBCDIC artist?

@Spillerrec

5 жыл бұрын

This computer is from 1959 and Wikipedia has the following to say about ASCII: "ASCII was developed from telegraph code. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services. Work on the ASCII standard began on October 6, 1960, with the first meeting of the American Standards Association's (ASA) (now the American National Standards Institute or ANSI) X3.2 subcommittee. The first edition of the standard was published in 1963,[3][4] underwent a major revision during 1967,[5][6] and experienced its most recent update during 1986.[7]"

Rule 34... NO EXCEPTIONS

@MJRSoap

5 жыл бұрын

I want IBM 401 pronz now

WE WANT THE FULL SOPHIE!!!

@usern4m32

5 жыл бұрын

lolx2

@gorillaau

3 жыл бұрын

I think it can be found at sophie dot com No, better you don't try that.

@adrianmardianto7681

3 жыл бұрын

Hatter?... or what?

@cpufreak101

3 жыл бұрын

@@gorillaau I tried it, and it's... odd.

@samsunguser3148

2 жыл бұрын

or else im pausing it and whack something out of anger

The English version I remember started with something like, "This is Edith, an optional feature of the IBM 1401. For more information, please rerun with sense switch B on." The switch B version had the same initial text followed a brief blurb about the 1401 and the suggestion to run with sense switch C on for even more information. In the switch C version, the sign covered her boobs as well and was filled with the actual specs for the 1401!

@CuriousMarc

6 жыл бұрын

Great info. We have not located an "original" English version yet.

@not_herobrine3752

2 жыл бұрын

neofetch for the 1401 seemed classy

Never try "switch d" , trust me!

@revsnowfox3613

6 жыл бұрын

The "D" only makes it better!

@Egress.

5 жыл бұрын

Hah!

@Dr.TJ_Eckleburg

5 жыл бұрын

SHE WANTS THE D

@SebBrosig

5 жыл бұрын

switch E prints 4K resolution full colour live action hardcore p***

@volvo245

5 жыл бұрын

@@revsnowfox3613 You caught the big G

I've been enjoying the 8 bit guy, but this channel has significantly fewer bits!

@andrewhamop6665

5 жыл бұрын

Lol same

@Neo_Chen

5 жыл бұрын

Actually, 1960s computers are either 12 (like PDP-8), 18 (like PDP-1, PDP-7), 24 (like SDS940), 36 (PDP-10), or 60 bit (CDC6600)

@mikafoxx2717

5 жыл бұрын

This machine is more like a 6 bit machine, if you don't include parity or anything.

@karthikbiju3367

4 жыл бұрын

Watch Ben eater for the 4bit computer..

@PickleSurpriseVEVO

4 жыл бұрын

8 Tits Guy

LOL, a meme of the preinternet era XD

@ownerfate

5 жыл бұрын

it would be interesting to see it print a text present day meme... lol

I know Edith and other girls from my FORTRAN semester (was about 1976). But there was also a remarkable print of a steam locomotive, the BIG BOY; about 5 feet long. Depending upon our professor was at vacation or on mission, we swapped above prints.

@CrystalStarscape

Жыл бұрын

hey, I know something like the second one from modern UNIX

There were any number of programs like that for almost (probably all) computers with a printer in those days. When I was in college I ran off a copy of Sophie and gave it to a friend to sneak into the chemistry amphitheater just before the final exam and tape it to the front of the lecturer's podium. It stayed there for the next three hours, and probably longer. I have no idea what effect it had on overall class scores for that year. I was the only chemistry/math/physics major in the school that also knew where the computer lab was on campus, which should give you some idea of just how long ago that was.

Vintage computing is very interesting, even back in the 50's you had joke programs.

Technology may be ever-changing, but those who make it never change :D

"I'm going to need this printed ... for research purposes ..."

These programs were quite widely written - I used to work on an IBM 1460, with ran three 1403 printers - at Xmas we wrote a program that printed Santa on his sleigh with the three printers working in parallel, playing Jingle Bells as they printed - by using one part, two part and four part listing on each of the three printers we got a good tonal range to the music. IT was so very simple back in 1969.

@stickoutofthemud

Жыл бұрын

Growing up in the 60's, every Christmas my rather brought home a long printout from NDSU - Merry Christmas with (I think) Santa and reindeer. I thought it was so cool that the M was made out of capital M's, the e's were made out of lower case e's, and so on. And IIRC, the card stack was only 2 or 3 inches thick. I believed until 30 seconds ago that my dad wrote the program himself. But I now have my doubts. I still wonder what happened to the card stack as I'm sure I recall seeing as late as my high school years in the late 70's.

I cannot imagine the time it took to get this program right.

@clastegenfeldt4751

5 жыл бұрын

You really cannot imagine the amount of PAPER it took to get this program right :-)

@MomMom4Cubs

4 жыл бұрын

I said just the same thing!

@ducksonplays4190

4 жыл бұрын

I love these old computers

@nootaboot7042

3 жыл бұрын

mustve been hard; coding one handed

Lovely, I know Edith here in German, when my Dad runs the Office they Used Edith ti communicate with other Offices just for fun in their free time. They had many punch cards with different versions of Edith on the early Computer days. He told me. Cheers Form showing. Bye bye Toni

@ingusmant

6 жыл бұрын

Toni Turnwald what did the other versions do?

@toniturnwald9890

6 жыл бұрын

quite complicated to explain. I know actually 5 different Versions of Edith, the Version you have should be No4c ( I count from the German view point ) Also when it's Version 4c you have actually 3 pictures inside, but if you have Version 4c1.11 there is a hidden pic, switch 1off, 2on,3on,4on,5 till 7 off and the system should be after the reading in the RUN Option stay, than you can see pic No4, if you have Version 4c1.11 ( from the Germans ). So, the other Versions of Edith are. I will start with the last one, because with that Version I worked many times Version No.5 it was build on Forth and it was used as a " Gate-way" to send the program code to the early CP/M Systems, and there there was also a Version of Edith with brings up the different program code into the CP/M System to work, with a few easy modifications. Version No.4 this is that Version you have are the funny options of the Edith program, this was some Version that runs on a few different early Computers till the late 70s, because it was structured programmed and with Forth it works on all Systems with a A2 or A3 printer. Version No.3 of the Edith Package ( Here in Germany ) it was for collecting Data and to transmit that Data to other Systems via a 24h online telephone line. Version No.2 was the Compiler for the Edith Package, it means you got a simple code of program for your company and than you have to build that individual for your business and when you finished the program part you used this compiler, because it made some sort of code, that runs on many machines. Version No.1 was here in German ( it's hard to explain ), it was on about 750 cards and it runs only on full expanded machines, it was used in the Chemistry industry for analyzing chemical reactions and to calculate molecule structures, but actually here in German there where 4 Versions of Version No.,1 available. The 2nd Version of No.1 was the main program for Edith, where you can write your own Edith programs and from this Version there comes or stats all the rest Version Numbers, include this one you have. Also in the Version No1 ( the 2nd part ) there was some sort of Demo-program what Edith can do for you. Then Version No1 the 3rd was for a few banks like Sparkasse or Raiffeisenabk here in Germany for their control of the early bank accounts. This Version was on about 800 cards. Version No.1 then 4th was a simple program, it only counts and calculates some astronomical data on the early days. ! BUT ! also on the east-block of Germany there was a Version of Edith it was the complete Version 1,2 and their own build Version No.6, they used this for some early defense calculations. So, I hope I have helped you a little, if you like more information about Edith, because it was a pretty good program code, feel free to ask. cheerio Toni

@toniturnwald9890

6 жыл бұрын

PS: Sorry for my bad English, but I'm, from Germany, smile

@fatcat7024

5 жыл бұрын

Weiß man eigentlich auch genaueres über die Herkunft der Programme? Hast du einen Buch tipp dafür oder einen Link? :)

@toniturnwald9890

5 жыл бұрын

fatcat Nee, ein Buch nnicht, aber die Software auf y-Blättern A3' und Magnetband, sowie einige Texte dazu irgendwo, das müsste ich alles heraus suchen. LG. Toni

do you realize what you are seeing? 2d women... before anime had reached america these women are precious relics of a time before the weeaboo taint

@KingLich451

5 жыл бұрын

indeed...

@martergaming

5 жыл бұрын

2d women were around in america long before the anime craze

@JawingSalamander

5 жыл бұрын

These are just like discovering cave paintings. Anime, on the other hand, is the 2nd Renaissance.

@mmestari

5 жыл бұрын

Read about Tijuana bibles.

@BJGvideos

5 жыл бұрын

Hey man, the US invented the anime style so it just travels in cycles.

Female and loving this silly culture lesson!

Actually that Germany says, "Whatever the goal of your wishes was, the 1401 doesn't let you do everything with it"

Glad that they were able to find the program and recreate it. I wonder who the original programmer(s) were and how much time must have been spent to essentially have three different variations.

Among the many capacities of SAGE, a massive 1950s air defense computer network (1st of its kind, many, many firsts) was to display a naked lady on the radar scope. Built largely by IBM, it was the fastest vacuum-tube computer ever built. Each unit the size of a football field and was actually two complete redundant computers, local and remote failures were thus defended against.

I think that Oregon professor will benefit from research done with both the Sophie and Edith programs.

Classic switch at the end, who said Germans don't have a sense of humor.. Big waste of manpower, but totally worth it.

@fischX

6 жыл бұрын

Oh, they have a lot of humor - it's just not funny - on the other hand they are funny, but that has nothing to do with the humor :-) (me Austrian)

@Colaholiker

5 жыл бұрын

That reminds me of that old joke.. How many Germany does it take to change a light bulb? One. They are efficient and have no sense of humor. Now guess where I am from.. yup, Germany. :)

@0000Sierra117

5 жыл бұрын

"German humor is no laughing matter"

@Nighthawke70

5 жыл бұрын

"No, but I know crazy." We geeks all are a little crazy and curious, a dangerous combination.

@Colaholiker

5 жыл бұрын

@@0000Sierra117 Not at all. We take humor *really* seriously. :o)

I interned in a computer center that had a 370. They definately had nekkid wimmen printout programs!

@user-ik8oq1ob4n

5 жыл бұрын

Cool keyboard

As a lady I have to say I don't find this offensive... it would be kinda like thinking the erotic art found at Pompeii is offensive. (and that is much higher resolution!) XD I mean, it's not exactly a shock that guys in the 60s used computers for stuff like this. It's human nature, right? And there were presumably very few women around so what would stop them? You know, as a girl, I bought my first web hosting in 2001 because I wanted to post my questionable fangirl artwork and fiction someplace, and all the existing free hosts had rules about that stuff (also GeoCities or whoever would put ad banners on your site). We ladies do it too. If anything it's just sad that we had no representation back then... I'm glad times have changed and now any person can find something to look at on the internet. :)

@NathanChisholm041

5 жыл бұрын

@DRZ 400 Boy scouts should remain boy scouts! Redicliouse the pc garbage going on these days! What next?

@NathanChisholm041

5 жыл бұрын

@DRZ 400 OK mate no problem's

@thejackbox

5 жыл бұрын

@DRZ 400 well said for a motorcycle

@AureliusR

5 жыл бұрын

@@NathanChisholm041 boy scouts ARE still boy scouts... nothing has changed whatsoever. I don't understand what the issue is.

@blahfasel2000

5 жыл бұрын

Actually, the 1960s were the decade during which the demographics of computer programmers shifted from mainly women to predominantly men, but still about 30-50% of computer programmers were women in the 1960s.

EDITH ran just fine on a 1410 running in 1401 mode. There was also a "Jingle Bells" program for the 1401 - it used the 1403 (600 LPM version) .

Ah, computer technology has redeemed itself at last!

I loved those old machines. I started as s field service engineer for digital equipment corp in 1970. I used to work on this equipment (except the cpu). The sounds of a vintage computer room are great. The only thing not on this video are the smells of the vintage computer room.

"We need a name for our sexy ebcdic art program?" "How about Edith?" I guess Gladys and Gertrude were taken?

7:14 He wears a belt AND suspenders? Number safe!

10/10 would've enjoyed that if i lived back then. Coming from a 19 year old girl. :'D

In late 1964 and early 1965 I was at a research facilty in California which had an IBM 704 and an IBM 1401. There was a similar situation. Instead of a program there was a deck of data cards that when printed on the 1401's line printer a young lady would appear. So it wasn't a program but it was data; about two feet in the deck of cards. However this deck was not kept in a file cabinet. Off in a corner one had to lift up a floor tile to reveal the hiding place. The facility had a double floor typical for cooling computers in those days.

How to print hentai in the 1960s

@therealbobmayo5065

5 жыл бұрын

UnderDubz this was before anime had come to the US, so not hentai! :D

@UnderDubz

5 жыл бұрын

@@therealbobmayo5065 how to print ascii pin up drawings in the 1960s

@8bits59

4 жыл бұрын

@@UnderDubz but IBM used EBCDIC, not ASCII :)

@te0nani

3 жыл бұрын

Men of Culture existed in every Century.

That reminded me of an open house I went to at a NOAA facility in Seattle when I was a teenager (probably in the late 1970's). They had a large flatbed plotter they were proud off. It's vacuum table was maybe 5 by 10 feet (plus or minus a couple of feet). As I remember it (but my memory is admittedly a bit shaky), they started to run a demo plot on the plotter but shut it off after a few lines had been drawn. They changed to and ran a different program. After the demo, I asked the demonstrator why they changed programs and he showed me a previous complete plot of the program they started to run. And, you guessed it, it was a pin-up girl much like the ones you printed -- except with better resolution and in a reclining pose. Amazingly, I can't remember if she had cloths on or not. You'd think a teenage boy would remember if she didn't, so she probably did.

Very entertaining! The 1401 is a little before my time. I began working at IBM in Sweden in 1974 as a Customer Engineer and there were still a lot of 1403 printers at our customers. The last printer I was trained to fix was the big 3800 laser printer. What a beast that was! :) /Anders

This machine amazes me. I wish I was nearby it. Would love to volunteer my time to learn how it completely works, even if it includes just cleaning or dusting it.

I prefer Sophie.

Man, that brings back memories of high school. Spent hours learning machine language, auto order assembly, programming the ibm 024 and 029 keypunch drum, I’ve 129 “electronic” keypunch machine, creating 1403 printer “programming” ribbon, etc. what great fun to go back to the 1970s and my youth :)

“For the good of academic research“. I now suspect that you faked the email 😂

@CuriousMarc

6 жыл бұрын

+Ryges: I take this as a joke. But for the record, not fake at all. Pr. Alilunas is a specialist of the subject. He wrote a scholarly book about the history of adult media: www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=978052091713 . He actually sent us a very nice thank you email, explaining that this was quite significant (for his research that is), since apparently adult computer media can all be traced back to Edith and the IBM 1401. A distinction I certainly did not expect our machine to have!

@Ryges

6 жыл бұрын

CuriousMarc it was indeed a joke.

@slendi9623

4 жыл бұрын

@@CuriousMarc dammit the link is broken

@saszab

4 жыл бұрын

@@slendi9623 The second "2" is missing. The correct link is www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520291713

If your flesh is orange colored like that, maybe go see a doctor? ;)

@RamLaska

5 жыл бұрын

Or become president and screw the entire world.

@theLuigiFan0007Productions

5 жыл бұрын

Someone consumed an entire 5lb bag of carrots daily for a week.

@DancingRain

5 жыл бұрын

Or lay off the spray-on fake tan :P

I'd love to volunteer there and work my way through all those decks of cards, cataloguing them, backing them up.....

At tech school there were printouts of the Mona Lisa and Alfred E. Neuman that used double-printed characters. I took them down and made line-by-line copies of them. I still have the punch cards and a computer tape version.

In 1971/72, I ran an IBM 360 at U of Houston. We had a card deck that played Christmas music by making things vibrate, mostly the line printer.

What happens if you turn switch D on? 🙋

@maicod

6 жыл бұрын

it explodes

@grappydingus

6 жыл бұрын

She gets the D? I had to say it!

@LucasPereiradaSilva

5 жыл бұрын

Atlas ICBM launch code is completed.

@danmackintosh6325

5 жыл бұрын

They get much larger?

@himselfe

5 жыл бұрын

Flicking the C is enough for Edith, she has no use for D.

I'm a german engineering student and all I can say is great computer, nice video and Your pronunciation is quite good!

There went most of my hearing while working in the computer room. That line printer really makes a lot of noise.

Your German pronounciation is really good! Many English people can't pronounce the "ä" or "ö" etc correctly. Respect 👍

I love the stripes at the edge of the punch cards... experienced people :-)

A pioneer in your field as always!

I've lived near the Computer History Museum my whole life (59) and have never been inside there. Lagging supreme. The building was once the headquarters of Silicon Graphics before they built their new site, which eventually became Google's home base.

Todays academic research only has more pixels instead of text "pixels". pretty much nothing changed

I am surprised you speak German, Marc. From your accent I guess you're a French guy living in the US? Greetings from good old Europe! (Germany here)

@CuriousMarc

5 жыл бұрын

You got it right, French living in the US. I learned German at school while I was in France. I forgot most of it though...

@Colaholiker

5 жыл бұрын

Cool! Unfortunately I skipped learning French in school, which is usually very popular in Germany, so I only speak German and English. But dealing with colleagues in France quite a bit, who usually speak English when talking to us, I immediately recognized your nice French accent. Thanks for all the great videos on this channel! :)

Legitimately needed the sauce for science!

Very early digital photography. I also remember seeing early examples of using a line printer to produce a graphic or (photographic) image. Another trick done with line printers was to make them play music by printing specific patterns of characters.

Best channel on YT

I don't remember whether I saw Edith or Sophie back in the day but I'm sure I probably did see something similar coming off a 1403 printer. I remember printouts showing Snoopy were common being printed by a 1403 connected to an IBM 360. At a local university they had some basic wooden chairs to sit on when using an 029 keypunch machine. It was the perfect height. I could type faster on the keypunch than I could on a typewriter of the day. I still have printouts that came from a 1403. I also still have a manual and a control drum for an 029 along with a couple of decks of cards with a couple of programs on them that I was running back in the early 80s.

Gosh this video brings back some old memories when I worked on an old IBM 360 /30 computer room... 1403 printer... 029 keypunch... the card reader... old tape drives.... 5081 punch cards! Dang... can I come work for you guys?

Grown men having too much fun with technology(!) My German grandfather would have liked the Edith program. Nice job. Edith ist wunderschön.

While in college I was a student operator on a 1401. We ran Edith and had a version that I remember was not as prudish. I created an autocoder subroutine that would go and read the card images from the disk that would immediately print out in the final Edith glory. Wow, I really appreciate the work you are doing.

Amazing! I had a whole 30-year career working on big IBM machines (and then retired) and never worked on equipment this old!

I see this video now years laters (2024) and I worked with several computers mainframes in the past, e.g. in The Netherlands with the P1200 (or P1175), Bull DPS 7(000), Siemens 4004, and some more. IBM too, but only as a programmer. But the printeed ladies.... well, we had those everywhere! And one of a steam locomotive, really beautiful. Prints also had som doubleprinted characters, as in this days it was easy to let a printer do that.

'Hidden Figures' take a whole new meaning.

I never saw this coming; I guess people never change! You should have Sophie in all her appearances scanned and converted to plain-text ascii format-you know, for posterity!

I remember "Fifi" on a TTY punch tape!

*People in 1959:* We have one of the most powerful and advanced computers of our time at our disposal *also people in 1959:* let it print out some boobs

I was there a couple months before this was uploaded without even knowing that happened!

I remember we were printing these things on an IBM 1403 and an IBM 3211 impact printer.

at 4:38 gotta love the CuriousMarc goes oops. I rekon the printer was having fun though, LOL

I had a large card deck once that printed something similar, but no bikini! The deck was SYSIN for IEBGENER and SYSOUT was the printer. The tagline at the bottom said “it’s been a business doing pleasure with you”.

FWIW I'm a female and I found this hilarious. I tossed you a subscribe just to be nice hehe.

I want that file for recreating those cards, will you ever publish it?

That was fun, and that 1401 is definitely an AWESOME computer. ... thanks for sharing, CuriousMarc and Computer History Museum friends. :-)

Interesting... While I hadn't heard about Edith specifically, while I was a student, there were plenty of line printer art images.. Somewhere I have card decks and tapes with the various datasets. (some used classic over-printing for better resolution). One of the nicest I recall was an image of the moon. These later images were just data printed by a small header program and a wee bit of JCL.

@allanrichardson1468

6 жыл бұрын

There were also programs that printed letter combinations designed to make the hammer sounds produce musical notes and play songs. There were also programs (different for each computer) that performed counting loops in the CPU designed to produce radio waves (an unavoidable by-product of fast switching) that could be picked up on a properly tuned FM radio to play songs. However, once interruptions and multitasking were available, these music programs could not produce reliable pitches or tempi to reproduce music, since no one program had total control of the CPU. But the random tones produced over the air (in the same room, of course) still provided a way of knowing when no processing was being done, so for a few years afterward, some operators preferred to leave a radio on as a "monitor" to alert them (by silence or a steady tone) that something was wrong.

@timb7085

6 жыл бұрын

Yup - while I never heard any printer "songs" - the sounds the typical IBM line printer made while printing the pics was interesting in itself (especially pics with overprints for additional grey-tones). As for programs running on processors to make music (on the radio) - I know of them, but haven't seen them work in person. (I believe the PDP-8 was used - never worked on one, my first was a PDP-11/34a - great machine for it's day)

@rty1955

5 жыл бұрын

Tim B I have a tape of most of the printer art. Snoopy, JFK, the moon, etc

The DEC KL10 system at Catholic Univ in Washington DC in the mid 70s had several versions that had evolutions from printed copies to the PDP Terminals that were highly detailed using fractal created lines on the electronic display to simulate the curly hairs...

First computer I worked on was a 1440, the baby version of a 1401 with 4000 6-bit characters of core storage (aka RAM), a card reader-punch, a tape drive and a printer. A good programmer in those days was one who could squeeze every ounce of performance out of it, so working in Autocoder, we did things that would have stood people's hair on end today, like using instruction codes as constants and altering code on the fly. A tape might have, e.g., a customer file. If you wanted to find a particular customer, the drill was to load the tape-to-print program from a card deck, then run it with a sense switch that kept it from printing, until you figured (by eye) that the tape was somewhere near the one you wanted, then flip the switch and get a few lines of print, flip another switch to pause the program, and check the printout. If you had gone past the record you wanted, you would manually rewind the tape a bit, rinse and repeat. Edith would be a very simple program, probably just reading and printing a card deck, or if you got really sohphisticated, setting the image up in a table as a bit pattern, say 150 rows of 22 characters (132 bits), which would come to 3300 characters of data. The program wouldn't take up more than 100 characters or so. The baling-wire-and-canvas days of computing.

As far as I remember there were at least two other versions of this, Susie and Michelle iirc. One was very explicit. In addition there were the ‘music decks’ where the printer was used without paper whilst an AM radio was placed on the printer cover and tuned to a non-used station frequency. The interference of the print train caused ‘music’ to be played on the radio. I believe one piece of music was either Anchors Away or a piece of Sousa.

I wonder if they've found either of the 1401 "Music Loader" programs. One of them hammered the printer chain to generate musical notes; the other caused the 1401 CPU to generate electrical signals that could be picked up on an AM transistor radio as musical notes.

@CuriousMarc

5 жыл бұрын

Yes, we have them. We don't like to use the printer music one though, as it stresses the character chain, and we don't have that many left.

Can I purchase a printout of Edith or Sophie for room decoration purposes (no joke)?

Great history channel :-)

Oh, that is cheeky, lol. It is so funny to see this in action; thank you.

This is awesome! :) I've never seen a computer like that, but it makes sense it would have been like that on the beginning :P

Play it again Sam

Nice videos. Brilliant engineering that lead to manufacturing those machines. Whatever followed is probably unhuman. Thanks.

I really wanna see the source code for edith and sophie. It will be one of the best research material and I might try to port it on java and c++, just for fun....

Out of curiosity, I tried looking for copies of either Edith or Sophie online, neither seem to show up on either textfiles.com or archive.org, yet you seem to have a digitised copy locally. Makes me wonder how much else has been digitised, but not publicised?

Hello, compared to the IBM 1401, I am still very young when I am 20 years old, but I am always interested in computer technology, no matter how old or new it is. It's great fun watching them do their jobs. As a German I always find it funny to find something in German somewhere else. And remember, the IBM 1401 doesn't do everything with itself ;-)

So important to have the knowledge transfer from these folks. We have come so far but it’s important to keep the history of where it started.

@stickoutofthemud

Жыл бұрын

Yeah. Today we have to make do with photographs. LOL.

We had similar programs for the IBM System 360 at Kansas State University.

What I want to come about would be a multi-Media 1401 simulator, a GUI based app on a suitable machine,like the Commodore Amiga. Some of features would be the true sounds, of, say, the combination card read, punch and print op codes, drag and drop response to the punch card chip bucket full light to empty it, manipulation of the sense switches, etc.

What does the emergency off switch do inside of the IBM 1401?

In the late 1990s we undergrads took delight in printing out pictures of Concorde (lots of free scrap paper generated) and the Mona Lisa on an ICL 1904s mainframe - happy days 🙂

So abut this email exchange.. dose it count as sauce request for research purpose ?

I remember in highschool our pdp8 had a papertape that printed out jfk.