Thank you for this, I never knew how this worked. My experience as an IBM 360 (USC-ECL) operator was brief and I never got into the nuts and bolts.

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?

Thanks,

      Mary Ann Horton (she/her/ma'am)
      maryannhorton.com


On 12/19/23 15:52, Bakul Shah wrote:
On Dec 19, 2023, at 1:31 PM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, the 1403 was very loud.  The pitch of the noise varied with the
sequence of characters being printed.  Some IBM hacker (yes, they
existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
"Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403.  IBM field service wasn't very keen on
this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.

I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh" but I did find "La Marseillaise":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10

[For the curious & easily distracted among us....]