If you're aware of bits of computer history, you've probably heard how people created printouts to play songs on the IBM 1403 printer. The printer made a lot of noise that could be controlled by the forcing its print hammers to hit the character-chain-belt in specific sequences. I remember a very nice 1403 rendition of "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain."
Less well known are the Ampex 40MB drives which, for a short time in the 1970's, were the largest reasonably priced drives. They were about the size of a clothes dryer and sat on four wheels. There was enough momentum from the motion of the disk read/write heads to make the drives move. One fellow I knew wrote a program to control them like a remote model car, "driving" them all around the computer room.
Monday, September 26, 2005
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