20 Dec
2023
20 Dec
'23
10:07 p.m.
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 11:14 PM Mary Ann Horton <mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote:
I vaguely recall, as a teen, taking a tour of a DEC-10
shop in about 1970
in Portland. Their printer played "Anchors Aweigh" and I never knew how.
But now I wonder - does this mean they had an IBM 1403 connected to a DEC
10 somehow?
It certainly means they had some kind of chain or train printer, but any
place big enough to have a PDP-10 would probably have had the budget for a
serious printer as well. I don't know if DEC made a competing printer (I
think they were very early with dot matrix printing?) or not (or who other
than IBM made big lineprinters), but once you know the trick is possible,
the rest is a relatively simple matter of having someone with a good ear to
tune the printer output so it sounds right.
For a modern and delightful analogue to this, have a look at the
Floppotron. https://www.youtube.com/@PaweZadrozniak