Scientists restore first sweet tunes generated by a computer

There's something remarkable about hearing the first, sweet and slightly tortured tones conducted entirely through a computer, especially when you consider that they were generated 65 years ago.

Researchers at the University of Canterbury recently figured out how to restore a two-minute BBC recording of the first, known computer music, generated through a program developed by Alan Turing.

Somewhere between 1948 and 1951, the legendary World War II code-breaker, programmed a massive computer (the Mark I and then its successor, the Mark II) to make a sound — essentially a click — that it could repeat quickly enough to create a single tone. Altering the order of clicks created different notes. The result is something akin to a slightly broken violin or fog-horn. Turing was no musician, though, so computer scientist Christopher Strachey (then a student), whom Turing let work with the massive computer on his off hours, surprised everyone and programmed it to play, among other tunes, Read more...