The IBM 1401 makes "music"
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it as the classic early example of a computer producing music through electromagnetic emissions, in threads on System Bus Radio and similar hacks.
What it is
A one-minute demo at the Computer History Museum's IBM 1401 restoration lab, where a program makes the machine's radio-frequency interference play tunes on an AM radio.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2015 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Cites kens · 2015-03 · on “Dot matrix printer playing “Eye of the Tiger” [video]”
That's pretty impressive. Printer music goes way back, by the way. Here's a (low-quality) recording of a 1960s-era IBM 1401 mainframe playing the Blue Danube Waltz on a 1403 line printer: [LINK] And here's the 1401 playing tunes on a radio via RF interference from the core memory: [this video] Unfortunately the 1401 at the Computer History Museum isn't currently authorized for line printer music because the stress might destroy the print chain and they don't have a replacement.
Cites kens · 2016-03 · on “System Bus Radio”
Generating music via radio interference goes way, way back. The IBM 1401 (1960's era) could do this: [this video] It could also play music on the line printer by banging out the right sequence of characters. [LINK] Strangely, the 1401 radio music was later set to orchestra and released as a CD by an Icelandic composer: [LINK]
Cites fernly · 2018-01 · on “System Bus Radio: Transmits AM radio on computers without transmitting hardware”
Live demo at the Computer History Museum, of an IBM 1401 playing music via AM radio bus emissions. [this video] You can see the 1401 demo'd on Wednesdays and Saturdays -- although they don't do this in the regular demo, just read cards and print on the line printer.
Cites kens · 2020-12 · on “Transmits AM radio on computers without radio transmitting hardware”
This technique goes back to the early days of computers. Here's a video of the IBM 1401 punch card computer (1959) at the Computer History Museum playing music on an AM radio: [this video] The same computer could also play music using the line printer: [LINK] I discuss how the line printer music worked here: [LINK]
Cites mgdlbp · 2022-06 · on “The Floppotron 3.0”
Awesome, the 2.0 decommissioning last week had scared. There's a spectacular variety of ways that music has been made in unconventional electromechanical ways--on the head motors of floppy drives 3.5", 5.25", and 8", on hard drive voice coils, scanner carriage motors, steppers wherever the're found in CNC devices, dot-matrix printheads, pulsed laser cutters, tesla coils, all the way back to radio interference generated by the IBM 1401 ( [this video] ). The 1401 video I actually saw in an older related HN submission; lots of comments linking out to different examples in these threads. Here are a couple, someone might be able to aggregate a bunch more: "Eye of the Tiger" played on a dot-matrix prin