Playing Boards of Canada on a DEC PDP-1 from 1959
This is so so cool and an arrow-splitting bullseye in the middle of my wheelhouse: a short Boards of Canada tune played on a DEC PDP-1, one of the most significant machines in the history of computing.
Here’s a description of what’s going on, courtesy of @dryad.technology on Bluesky:
The PDP-1 doesn’t have sound, but it does have front-panel light bulbs for debugging, so they rewired the light bulb lines into speakers to create 4 square wave channels.
You can read more about The PDP-1: The Machine That Started Hacker Culture:
The bottom line is that the PDP-1 was really the first computer that encouraged users to sit down and play. While IBM machines did the boring but necessary work of business behind closed doors and tended by squads of servants, DEC’s machines found their way into labs and odd corners of institutions where curious folk sat in front of their terminals, fingers poised over keyboards while a simple but powerful phrase was uttered: “I wonder what happens if…” The DEC machines were the first computers that allowed the question, which is really at the heart of the hacker culture, to be answered in real time.
And every day is a good day to listen to Boards of Canada. Oh! And if you’re anywhere near Mountain View, the Computer History Museum has regular demos of the PDP-1 and will play the song if requested!
If anyone would like to see this live, we demo the PDP-1 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA on the first and third Saturdays of the month, 2:30 and 3:15p. Just ask, and we’ll be happy to play it!
(via @k4r1m.bsky.social)
Socials & More