23 Aug
2020
23 Aug
'20
8:58 a.m.
Robert Clausecker <fuz(a)fuz.su> writes:
When the computer is in a tight endless loop, the
accumulator takes the
same series of values every time it's in the loop. Thus, instead of
white noise you get a sound whose frequency is the clock frequency of
the machine divided by the number of cycles spent by one loop iteration.
A buddy and I did something somewhat related back in the early eighties,
when we were teaching ourselves programming, using, among other things,
his Tandy TRS-80 home computer. We discovered that a cheap "transistor
radio", sitting close to the computer, would be affected by the noise
generated by it, and then we figured out that if we didn't tune it to a
radio station, we'd get only the noise. Leaving that on as we worked on
a program, we got familiar with the sound of the code, and became able
to follow the execution by the changing patterns -- and if it did get
stuck in a loop somewhere, we'd not only hear it, but we would also have
a pretty good idea where it happened.
-tih
--
Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance
of Lisp. Lisp is the most important idea in computer science. --Alan Kay