You just upgraded the oldest working computer of it's kind... with a sound card... and used to to play christmas music for the entire internet... nice. Very nice. This is what we needed right now.
We knew a year ago that we wanted to try to get this thing to play Christmas music, I'm just stunned we managed to get it done in time for actual Christmas!
@@tutacat Technically he built a small interface board that would make audio when it picked up the right signals in the computer seems like a sound card to me in it's most basic form but semantics and all. Just enjoy it. My first PC only had the internal squeaker that made beeps and was never really designed with a sound in mind. Making it make simple sounds or even speak using a basic program was awesome 30 years ago. Him doing it on a computer twice that age is that same amazing feeling.
A student in our group wrote a routine to play music on a now ancient IBM computer. The sound organ was a small radio placed on top of the console that picked up RFI from the operating circuits. This arrangement was also useful to monitor the operation as this had a cycle time of about 50 kiloHertz. One of my favorite sounds I named "birds on Mars." Chirp, chirp, kaw, kaw. Still miss that sound. We never recorded it.
That reminds me of the days when CPUs ran in the 75-100MHz range. If you tuned an FM radio to the same frequency as your clock speed and placed it right next to your PC, you could hear the CPU doing its thing through the speakers. This still works today with modern PCs if you have an SDR tuner that can tune into frequencies above 3GHz, but back then it was pretty neat being able to do it with equipment every house had lying around.
In my U S Navy career 75-95 I was a Gun Fire Control Tech. We aimed the 5 inch guns. I worked on Analog Mk 47 Gun Computers all the way through Mk 92 Mod 6 with Micro Computers. Heard a story where the advanced Shipboard Radar System AEGIS made a buzzing noise in the transmitter room Depending on the frequency the tone changed. During inspections for cleniness the tech would run a program that changed the tone to play the Navy song Anchors Aweigh. Always impressing the inspector.
When I was at school in the UK in 1967 we had an Elliott 405 vacuum tube computer of the same vintage as the Bendix. This had been donated to the school, and, after about 6 months work, we had got it working. It had a loud speaker on the console which was useful in diagnosing problems. We too discovered a music program (or 'programme' in those days) with some Christmas music, which had almost identical sound. It takes me back...
@@varioustoxins The Forest School, Winnersh, Berkshire. We had an amazing physics teacher, Mr Dally, who arranged the donation of the Elliott 405 from Cross & Blackwell and funding from the Royal Society. A few of us pupils spend our sixth form years getting and keeping it going.
That computer is now a pensioner and yet still works. Amazing. To put that in perspective 1956 was also the same year that The Ten Commandments, Forbidden Planet and The King and I were released, Elvis was 21 years old and was a phenomenon singing about a hound dog, Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Carrie Fisher, Bjorn Borg and Latoya Jackson were born, Fats Domino & Doris Day were big acts, 78 rpm records were still being sold, most tv shows were still in black and white and the first computer game was still yet to be developed by MIT. Perhaps not ancient history but still impressive. Well done and thanks guys for this video, showing us that with a lot of love and patience we can see a living link with the laptops and phones we are watching this on.
Rectangular Hollerith chads are extremely difficult to remove from clothing. They also predate round Teletype chads. The chad collection device in a mainframe card punch is about the size of a five gallon bucket. I submit that the "bit bucket" comes not from the Teletype chad container, but from the container on a Hollerith punch. Also: that amount of rectangular chad dumped into an obnoxious dorm resident's clothing drawers guarantees that he will still be finding it next year. He will also become somewhat more congenial.
Tears in my eyes! A closet size computer playing music worse than a Christmas card with a chip smaller than my finger nail...! It's a great video! I congratulate you for your effort and skill! Head bagging was a great moment too! Humanity has walked a great distance. Wish all this advance was only towards peace and making people life better! Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone!
25:50 That was me the first time I got my C64 to run an example program with a little piggy's face that floated across the screen. it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things but I was as happy as I could possibly be.
Watching a video of the oldest running computer on a modern day micro super computer that fits in my pocket and can run all day without a single cord. I was born in just the right time to see much of this madness unfold
The word "EPIC" does not do this justice! Hearing the result made my eyes watery. I have the greatest of respect for all your work. You deserve all the joy that radiates off your videos!
@@JR-tr1df agree to what? To Continue to watch a MAGA supporter like Usagi? You understand he is for taking people’s rights to love away and live as they see fit in the body they feel they have right?
@@TheRealRaddicalReggie-o9l I am from Romania and I am shocked by what you wrote. Shame on You! For You, what Usagi do is rocket sciences and I suppose you can`t understand he`s work. Need cleverness for that! You seem not able to understand the first rules of democracy witch mean peoples can have different personal political opinion without to be condemn or tagged. But You condemned a very clever person for his personal choice and that mean you don`t have any idea about what democracy means and the right for every person to have a different opinions other than you. I am feel sorry for how inhuman you are. I lived 17 years under Ceausescu communism and we didn't have the right to have any opinion about politics and in this days you are perfecting globalist neo-communism and the deep state. God help Elon Musk to make a good reform of American deep state!
Fantastic, you successfully restored the system, and built a sound card for the g15. An awesome result and in time for 2025. Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
In the '70s I was a CE on Xerox Sigma computers. I had a one card program that I would slip into the card reader when the customer was not looking which would produce bird song on the CPU speaker. It was amusing watching the DP manager and operators running around trying to find the bird . Well done keeping that machine running - great job!
Amazing! You and your computer cohorts never cease to amaze me. When that was a serious business machine; you know that someone spent many hours of their own time after hours inventing and coding the music program. Love this so much!
So good !! 🎉 If I remember correctly FM synthesis was devised / discovered / designed on a Bendix G15. That computer had a really important role in music history, and it all began with square waves as demonstrated here. Thanks for the video ❤
What a great video. Tommy Flowers was my favorite uncle. Christmas was my favorite holiday growing up because it was the only time I got to see Uncle Tommy.
This is the joy I felt the Christmas I got my first computer. A Tandy color computer 3 with a disk drive and cassette drive. I had NO software to begin with, but it did come with a 2 inch thick book of example BASIC programs. My dad and I took turns over hours entering in hundreds of lines of POKES, GOTOS and other data. When we finally typed RUN at long last, we were greeted with an, I THINK, 8 bit representation of a hut, palm tree and some coconuts with a rendition of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island on our RCA console furniture! I was BLOWN AWAY, and have been hooked since. I wrote many many megabytes of BASIC on that computer and never really stopped since that December 25th. Early Merry Christmas everyone!
I started with a Timex-Sinclair and quickly went to the old gray Color Computer, but the second version with regular keys, not the chiclet keys of the original. I later got the CoCo2 and a monitor. I subscribed to "Rainbow" and "Hot CoCo" magazines for many hours of fun typing in programs.
I learned to program in Basic and wrote a few programs - one is still being used. I never really got the hang of programming in anything else. Basic is so easy. I've been told by my software-engineer brother-in-law that Basic is tedious for doing anything complicated though.
@@TehButterflyEffectIt can be tedious for serious programming, but it is incredibly easy to pick up and start doing useful stuff with. There’s a good reason that BASIC was a large part of computer classes in the 80s and early 90s and there were even BASIC programs in math and science text books of the period. The only major drawback I saw during the time is it was SLOOOOOOW. Eventually I solved that with a BASIC compiler for the COCO and later C64/128. Sped up those programs by an order of magnitude.
All those tubes(or valves), diodes, resistors and rotating rust and the many kWs just to play some cheesy music. It sounds absolutely marvelous and I loved it. Thank you for spreading joy. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
About that weird modification on the typewriter - maybe it was used as a stage prop at some point? They wouldn't have had a compatible computer available, but by soldering all inputs together, they could have made it "do something" by applying voltage to a random input.
If you just wanted activity, you wouldn't have needed all those mods with diodes and resistors... To do that many mods, someone had to have some idea of what they were doing.. If he sends those marked up schematics with the mods to someone like Ken Shiriff or other reverse engineering wiz, maybe they could figure out what was actually intended..
My guess is it was in a location accessible by people who have no idea how to operate it (or, worse, people who think they do) and it ran some sort of program that when you pressed 0 you got something useful printed out but if you pressed any of the disabled keys bad things happened...and to prevent them from revolting they made it so every key became a harmless key. You can have a cranky six year old mash on it and it won't blow the system up, but it'll still print out whatever they need to print.
May it be that it had been rewired to act as some kind of braille typewriter/printing device, that should be operated by only few of the keys pressed simultaneously (bypassing the original keyboard matrix) like playing chords on a piano.
@@DanBowkley Yeah, it seems fairly clear that someone wanted to make quite sure no one could input anything but 0. There's got to have been a reason for that.
Back in the mid early to mid '70s my dad worked at Lamar University in Beaumont Texas as a computer programmer/operator and instructor. As a pre-teen I spent many an hour hanging out in the computer room loading card decks, removing print outs, decollating paper and shooting rubber bands. I distinctly remember the special programs that he would load on the machine that would play music as you are doing here and make print outs of Santa and the Reindeer, Mona Lisa and a rather interesting lady that I never got to the see the length of. This music is awesome and all those memories came flooding back. Thanks so much for making this happen.
This might be the greatest achievement of 2024. No joke, your first video on this computer was my introduction to you and ever since ever time I see a new video I just HAVE to see what else you got it to do!
When I was in college, the science department had a room with a retired Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8/e minicomputer from around 1970, that was still operational. At some point in the PDP-8/e’s lifetime, someone figured out that different mathematical operations caused the CPU to give off different frequencies of RF interference that could be picked up by a nearby transistor radio, and they were able to map the operations to musical notes. We had a set of programs that you could load up, and if you put a radio next to the CPU, it would play a tune.
That was absolutely fantastic. I love this old tech so much. All the modern stuff we use today was originally developed on these vintage computers. Thank you. Merry Christmas and a Happy 2025 to you too😀
I had the greatest moment of discovery when I was working in a workshop at the Old GPO research facility at Dollis Hill, North London, I saw a photo of Tommy Flowers holding a small prototype board for Colossus stood under the very window my prep bench sat at. Sadly all my workmates were like; 'Tommy who??' but there's no accounting for taste!
@@rjy8960 Sadly nothing so grand for the quiet man, if you search for 'Flowers Close, Dollis Hill' you will see the rather more depressing truth. His workshop at least still stands, now a Jewish girls school.
@@thirdeyeblind6369 In all fairness, they don't have the same significance to North Londoners like Tommy. His work literally stopped bombs and rockets landing on our heads.
Someone should make a movie about Tommy Flowers. When things south because people are cloth-eared gits, I say to myself "Well you'll never had to put up with what Tommy endured"
Oh, does THIS bring back memories! Back when I was a Comp Sci undergrad at Penn State (1972 - 1976), a classmate of mine - a Comp Sci major who was also in Penn State's 'Blue Band' (university marching band) had a couple of card decks and tapes to play music on the comp center's IBM 1401 computer system. (This only worked because the 1401, unlike the big System 370/168, was single user, not time share). The 1401, which was transistor-based, not vacuum tube, would radiate RF from the memory, and a radio set near the system and tuned off-station would pick up the RF emissions (AM, not FM, if I recall correctly). He had a deck that would play a medley of Christmas music. He had another program that would trigger the print hammers on the 1401's attached 1403 line printer (chain printer) to play 'Hail to the Lion' (Penn State football fight song). This, of course, was audible with no radio required. Lot of good memories there...
Hurrah! Another video. Everything stops for Usagi Electric. Happy Christmas! Much as I enjoy the subject rather more than I might have guessed before finding this channel, it's the presenter, his occasional guests and their almost child-like joy for what they are doing that has me looking forward to every episode. The occasional bunny is also rather charming. Thank you.
This - is - so - awesome. It's literally the best thing I saw and heard in the last 2 years. Thank you, thank you SO much for doing all this great stuff and sharing it with the world. It's so cool to see that even in these early days of computing, the idea of *somehow* making music with the computer was always one of the first thoughts people had when operating these machines. It's such a connecting feeling with those early operators and programmers, I simply love it. Pro tip: as far as I understand the documentation snippet that you showed in the video, the program should actually be able to even produce *two voices* of music at the same time, so simple polyphony (melody and one harmony/base note) should be possible as well! When entering the notes, two notes (a, b) at once could be entered with duration applying to both of them, so you can do chords and even polyphony when selecting the same note spanning on one "voice/part" over several steps and changing the other part to another note or a pause. If documentation for which number/value corresponds to which note is available, maybe the community could even create complex tunes for this contraption. I'd really love to... ;-) Best regards and a BIG thank you again for this great effort and *indescribably* big service to the preservation of computing history. You are just awesome.
Oh man, I got so excited seeing you playing with this beautiful ancient computer. Your computer reminds me of the movie The Time Travelers from 1964. I am so patient in learning how to make them work. I loved the ending with Silent Night. Great man! Thanks for sharing.
Oh my goodness - what a fantastic end of the year. Thanks for filling my life with so much wonder and excitement. You’re always saying how the community and others are legends but I’d like to flip the script and say you, my good sir, are a legend yourself. I’ve never been one to want to meet actors in movies, musicians in bands, etc… but I hope someday this NW Ohio man can shake your hand in person and tell you how much the journeys you’ve taken me on have meant to me. Merry Christmas, and a happy new year.
This made my day...thank you for all the work and sharing it with us. That hum and whirring noise reminds me of when I first joined the Army and was a switchboard operator. Our training facility was an enormous warehouse that housed multiple old-school mainframes and such, and I was in the midnight class. The whole base was dark and everyone was asleep when we'd get to class, but those sounds were always there. I often think back to those warm, comforting sounds of ancient computers just buzzing away.
This typewriter has mechanical tab stops under a flip up cover behind the platen. The tab stops are upside down U shaped clips. Usually the extra clips are stashed way to the right end of the platen where you don’t need tab stops. I had a typewriter like the Bendix, but short platen, back in the 1980s, mine said IBM on the front. You might want to put tabs every five spaces so that the carriage doesn’t keep flying all the way across when you hit tab on the input. Nice job on the restoration and thanks for the music. That brought back memories of doing an assignment back in college to get a Kim-1 6502 board to play Christmas music back in 1980 for an assembly programming class. My first attempt sounded about like the first output from the Bendix.
@ This one looks like the one I had, which was 12 point Pica type. Five spaces for a tab was pretty typical to give 1/2 inch tabs. Of course you can set it to whatever you want. Some experimentation may be necessary to figure out what the program assumes. Any stops are better than none with the carriage flying across every time it hits a tab. Anything printed after the tab will just be a jumble at the right margin.
@@robertosutrisno8604 I am still involved in electronics and data processing. Personally, changing technology doesn’t seem like a big deal. Hopefully most engineers don’t stop learning when they’re handed their diplomas. I prefer the technology we have now. I spent decades fiddling with DIP switches, wire wrap jumpers and what wires were necessary in a null modem to get equipment to talk. That takes away time from real problem solving. I much prefer the current technology environment because it is so much easier to be creative.
Hi there! I just found this video, and I'm sorry about that. I've been subscribed for a few months now, and this is the first video the algorithm thought I needed to see today. And it was right. I needed this. I love the passion you obviously have for this hobby. It legit brought a tear to my eye and it's only for a 70 year old computer playing music for the first time in... god knows how long? Thanks for this, thanks for your commitment to this hobby and its community, and Happy Holidays. :)
The sound of the computer making music pales in comparison to a geek celebrating a win in a Geek Snoopy Bowl! Love it! Nothing beats nerds and their computers!
That's fantastic! And reminds me of the story of guys in the Homebrew Computer Club noticing that the Altair would vibrate relative to certain inputs. So they, of course, starting writing code to make it vibrate music. Seriously, I fucking love this. You're response was some for-real joy! I love seeing videos like this.
This makes me remember the first time I played Pinball Fantasies on my 386SX without sound card and the PC Speaker music was actually good. It was mindblowing.
Man this totally blew me away and i'm not a computer type guy . I enjoy the history of how things come to be . People like you are the creators of stuff we all use & don't think about daily and your passion/excitement is contagious for sure.
I just found your channel a month ago and I’m hooked on this project. As having worked as a software developer AND as a hobbyist car restorer AND (as of tonight) someone who has repaired and runs a vintage receiver at home - we crossing interest streams all over the place. Silent Night almost floored me - keep it up.
Merry Christmas! You are a madman. THANK YOU FOR THIS! These guys were amazing who made this. You're amazing to learn it and restore it and share. THANK YOU!
Watching you going full mad scientist and then laughing your butt off was so infectious, I was laughing for the remainder of the video. You are awesome! Merry Christmas from Germany!
Nice! I love that you show the happiness/relief one feels when working with a problem (bugs) for hours (days) and finally find the fault. It's a fantastic feeling. I wish you a peaceful and great Christmas!
This is just crazy! Really enjoyed watching the whole process until that musical climax at the end. Amazing video as always, thanks for sharing your journey and Merry Christmas!
Your enthusiasm is highly infectious! You nearly had me shedding tears of joy when "Silent Night" popped out at the end there. A VERY merry Christmas to you and yours! 🎅
Wonder if you'd recognize any of the Bendix parts in that thing if you got a chance to look at it up close 😂 "Now the Government wants $200k for a replacement that'll be here in six weeks, but you can go down to O'Reillys and get the same solenoid for a 60-66 Chevy C/K for $20 and get it today!"
Apparently the Candes machines (one is shown at 1:41) are TEMPEST shielded Macintosh Plus systems, and there are only a handful of them known to exist. They were apparently sold to EMC labs. Is that H316 a complete system?
I watched this yesterday and specifically replayed the end section again today. The sheer happiness of getting a little tone generator to work, plus how amazing it is just to hear the computer -- which we've been watching since forever go from nonfunctional to actually usable -- "sing", in its own way
What memories! My introduction to computers was a G15 in 1960 or 1961. In 1962, I got involved with IBM 1401s, 1620s and 7090s - a career that lasted until my retirement in 1999. Really appreciated your episode.
It’s always wonderful seeing a piece of art and computing history working once again! It must truly feel special to have your hands on something as truly awesome as this! Have a great Christmas!
Congratulations! The first program to run on the 8-bit computer I built from a kit in 1977 was a similar music program. It used the same sort of simple resistor/capacitor circuit as yours, but attached to the Interrupts Enabled bus line. The music program then enabled and disabled interrupts in different-length loops to create the different square-wave notes. I'd spent months building that computer. Everything else was ready to go but my video card had been delayed. I wasn't very patient at 18 and was going mad waiting. So I carefully typed in the commands to load the music program and one of its songs into different RAM locations, then the command to run it, all without being able to see anything I'd typed. I wasn't sure it would even work without video installed. I wasn't sure the computer would work at all, actually, though I'd been able to test each card individually in an older friend's similar computer. But it did work, and my computer started playing me a beautiful Bach tune in 4-part harmony. So I think I know how you felt! :D
Just one BIG Congratulations on getting that old computer to work let alone play Christmas music. You are an awesome individual and of course all the people that helped also along the way !!! I have always wanted to be able to do what you have done here but alas my health has deteriorated and all the things I had collected along the way area now gone. At least I get to live my dream thru you !!! Thanks Usagi Electric
The music sounded great! BTW, back in the day when most printers used ribbons, as a hobbyist, I refreshed dried up ribbons with WD40. I remember that it would get me by.
Merry Christmas, and thanks for the digital music. It brought back memories of working with computers in the early 1970s with a speaker attached to a data line, officially for monitoring the running of test programs, but of course we figured out how to play tunes. Using paper tape then too!
Wow. Stille Nacht on this computer. I'm absolutely impressed. Now I'm waiting, that you get the typewriter running with ink and all. I wish you and your beloved people a wonderfull Christmas full of joy.
I love this channel. As it opens up, he's talking about the oldest computer in the US (likely the world) in running condition, happens to be a vacuum tube computer. Also behind him, the world's newest vacuum tube computer, both in the same shot. Nice work, David, and Merry Christmas to you!
You just upgraded the oldest working computer of it's kind... with a sound card... and used to to play christmas music for the entire internet... nice. Very nice. This is what we needed right now.
We knew a year ago that we wanted to try to get this thing to play Christmas music, I'm just stunned we managed to get it done in time for actual Christmas!
No sound card, he's reading the line raw
But will it run Doom?
@@tutacat Technically he built a small interface board that would make audio when it picked up the right signals in the computer seems like a sound card to me in it's most basic form but semantics and all. Just enjoy it. My first PC only had the internal squeaker that made beeps and was never really designed with a sound in mind. Making it make simple sounds or even speak using a basic program was awesome 30 years ago. Him doing it on a computer twice that age is that same amazing feeling.
@@antonsmith1497 At the very least need to figure out how to make it play the 8 bit? version of the theme song.
The fact that you can operate half a century old computer and modifying it is very impressive and extra ordinary.
Can it play GTA 6 💀💀
Much older than half a century in fact
@@Zombie-210maybe it can run AI and come alive?!
Can it core a apple? Oh yes, it can core a apple 🍎
Wow a 68 year old computer that sings Christmas carols that is truly a special kind of Christmas miracle! Thanks and Merry Christmas!
Funny to think about 30 years after this bendix, the fairlight CMI arrived, computer evolution has moved so fast.
I don't care if it doesn't sound good, it's making an attempt that a 7 year old with a flute would equal.
Thank you! And Merry Christmas to you and yours!
it's simply an amazing piece of computing history coming back to life :) this man is a genius :)
@@UsagiElectric Do you take requests? 😁🤣😏 Have it play "Daisy" and "The Fool in the Hill", which were both performed on the MITS Altair 8800.
A student in our group wrote a routine to play music on a now ancient IBM computer. The sound organ was a small radio placed on top of the console that picked up RFI from the operating circuits. This arrangement was also useful to monitor the operation as this had a cycle time of about 50 kiloHertz. One of my favorite sounds I named "birds on Mars." Chirp, chirp, kaw, kaw. Still miss that sound. We never recorded it.
Such a cool comment
That reminds me of the days when CPUs ran in the 75-100MHz range. If you tuned an FM radio to the same frequency as your clock speed and placed it right next to your PC, you could hear the CPU doing its thing through the speakers. This still works today with modern PCs if you have an SDR tuner that can tune into frequencies above 3GHz, but back then it was pretty neat being able to do it with equipment every house had lying around.
@@Psythikmy cpu can do the same, it's base frequency is the same as the frequency of wifi
I absolutely relish the sheer joy you get from successfully fixing this old gear. It’s inspiring and really fun to watch!
This!
Same! This was a joy to watch 🌲
Amazing seeing a machine run that was made the year I was born! I wonder if it can play "Bicycle Built for Two"
@@ChristopherHailey Same here.
Thank you so much! I can't help but get excited when the electrons do what we asked them to!
In my U S Navy career 75-95 I was a Gun Fire Control Tech. We aimed the 5 inch guns. I worked on Analog Mk 47 Gun Computers all the way through Mk 92 Mod 6 with Micro Computers. Heard a story where the advanced Shipboard Radar System AEGIS made a buzzing noise in the transmitter room Depending on the frequency the tone changed. During inspections for cleniness the tech would run a program that changed the tone to play the Navy song Anchors Aweigh. Always impressing the inspector.
Thank you for your service Sir, and for an epic insight into the early days of the Computers the military used!!.
Same with me, I was Mk86 GFCS. Magnetic tape with the old teletype with a million springs in it with magnetic core memory.
teletype world champion over here
That is awesome. 😂
When I was at school in the UK in 1967 we had an Elliott 405 vacuum tube computer of the same vintage as the Bendix. This had been donated to the school, and, after about 6 months work, we had got it working. It had a loud speaker on the console which was useful in diagnosing problems. We too discovered a music program (or 'programme' in those days) with some Christmas music, which had almost identical sound. It takes me back...
Out of interest where was that?
@@varioustoxins The Forest School, Winnersh, Berkshire. We had an amazing physics teacher, Mr Dally, who arranged the donation of the Elliott 405 from Cross & Blackwell and funding from the Royal Society. A few of us pupils spend our sixth form years getting and keeping it going.
Amazing story
Where did they use the computer for? Except playing Christmas Carols!
Your joy is infectious! Wonderful work!
Fancy seeing you on a video about a computer making bloops XD
working on a composition yet?
When I saw the square waves, I was expecting Daisy Daisy........
Next episode: Hear the Bendix say "I'm sorry, Usagi, I am afraid I can't do that."
@@lukasbasques Not at all, the christmas music was very fitting.
"...a tape reader built for two"
@@TomFynn i think it will ask if you would like to play a game.
Lloyd is amazing
That computer is now a pensioner and yet still works. Amazing. To put that in perspective 1956 was also the same year that The Ten Commandments, Forbidden Planet and The King and I were released, Elvis was 21 years old and was a phenomenon singing about a hound dog, Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Carrie Fisher, Bjorn Borg and Latoya Jackson were born, Fats Domino & Doris Day were big acts, 78 rpm records were still being sold, most tv shows were still in black and white and the first computer game was still yet to be developed by MIT. Perhaps not ancient history but still impressive.
Well done and thanks guys for this video, showing us that with a lot of love and patience we can see a living link with the laptops and phones we are watching this on.
It amazing that my cell phone is a better computer than this behemoth.
I'm over 50 and TIL the origin of the bit bucket.. Doh
I know, right? I'm 54 and went "ohhhhhhh!"
I had no idea. The concept makes perfect sense digitally.
@@geewiz70 same age and same reaction :)
Rectangular Hollerith chads are extremely difficult to remove from clothing. They also predate round Teletype chads. The chad collection device in a mainframe card punch is about the size of a five gallon bucket. I submit that the "bit bucket" comes not from the Teletype chad container, but from the container on a Hollerith punch.
Also: that amount of rectangular chad dumped into an obnoxious dorm resident's clothing drawers guarantees that he will still be finding it next year. He will also become somewhat more congenial.
Same reaction 😂
Tears in my eyes!
A closet size computer playing music worse than a Christmas card with a chip smaller than my finger nail...!
It's a great video! I congratulate you for your effort and skill!
Head bagging was a great moment too!
Humanity has walked a great distance.
Wish all this advance was only towards peace and making people life better!
Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone!
25:50 That was me the first time I got my C64 to run an example program with a little piggy's face that floated across the screen. it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things but I was as happy as I could possibly be.
Raster interrupt? That was some experience to get working the first time.
Also me when I wrote my fiurst music program in QBasic. 😀
I remember the 1541 playing Daisy
Watching a video of the oldest running computer on a modern day micro super computer that fits in my pocket and can run all day without a single cord. I was born in just the right time to see much of this madness unfold
The word "EPIC" does not do this justice! Hearing the result made my eyes watery. I have the greatest of respect for all your work. You deserve all the joy that radiates off your videos!
You shed a tear for this? Losa… also Usagi is a MAGA man I checked his X account. Makes me sick knowing that!
Agree =)
@@JR-tr1df agree to what? To Continue to watch a MAGA supporter like Usagi? You understand he is for taking people’s rights to love away and live as they see fit in the body they feel they have right?
@@TheRealRaddicalReggie-o9l I am from Romania and I am shocked by what you wrote. Shame on You! For You, what Usagi do is rocket sciences and I suppose you can`t understand he`s work. Need cleverness for that! You seem not able to understand the first rules of democracy witch mean peoples can have different personal political opinion without to be condemn or tagged. But You condemned a very clever person for his personal choice and that mean you don`t have any idea about what democracy means and the right for every person to have a different opinions other than you. I am feel sorry for how inhuman you are. I lived 17 years under Ceausescu communism and we didn't have the right to have any opinion about politics and in this days you are perfecting globalist neo-communism and the deep state. God help Elon Musk to make a good reform of American deep state!
@@gabiivan5240 Elon will replace you with a battery run AI!
One of the heaviest, most complicated music playing computers ever devised. All we need now is Carol of the Bells that includes the internal bell!
Fantastic, you successfully restored the system, and built a sound card for the g15. An awesome result and in time for 2025. Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
wellt its PCM... sort of.
Information is audio and audio is information. 😮
In the '70s I was a CE on Xerox Sigma computers. I had a one card program that I would slip into the card reader when the customer was not looking which would produce bird song on the CPU speaker. It was amusing watching the DP manager and operators running around trying to find the bird . Well done keeping that machine running - great job!
It's very nice to hear someone mention Tommy Flowers.... a very important figure who's often overlooked.
Tommy is mentioned in many places at Bletchley Park.
Amazing! You and your computer cohorts never cease to amaze me.
When that was a serious business machine; you know that someone spent many hours of their own time after hours inventing and coding the music program. Love this so much!
So good !! 🎉 If I remember correctly FM synthesis was devised / discovered / designed on a Bendix G15. That computer had a really important role in music history, and it all began with square waves as demonstrated here. Thanks for the video ❤
Source : th-cam.com/video/Mu8lHX-xuSg/w-d-xo.html
Interesting, did John chowing use this?
What a great video. Tommy Flowers was my favorite uncle. Christmas was my favorite holiday growing up because it was the only time I got to see Uncle Tommy.
This is the joy I felt the Christmas I got my first computer. A Tandy color computer 3 with a disk drive and cassette drive. I had NO software to begin with, but it did come with a 2 inch thick book of example BASIC programs. My dad and I took turns over hours entering in hundreds of lines of POKES, GOTOS and other data. When we finally typed RUN at long last, we were greeted with an, I THINK, 8 bit representation of a hut, palm tree and some coconuts with a rendition of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island on our RCA console furniture! I was BLOWN AWAY, and have been hooked since. I wrote many many megabytes of BASIC on that computer and never really stopped since that December 25th. Early Merry Christmas everyone!
I started with a Timex-Sinclair and quickly went to the old gray Color Computer, but the second version with regular keys, not the chiclet keys of the original. I later got the CoCo2 and a monitor. I subscribed to "Rainbow" and "Hot CoCo" magazines for many hours of fun typing in programs.
I learned to program in Basic and wrote a few programs - one is still being used. I never really got the hang of programming in anything else. Basic is so easy. I've been told by my software-engineer brother-in-law that Basic is tedious for doing anything complicated though.
@@TehButterflyEffectIt can be tedious for serious programming, but it is incredibly easy to pick up and start doing useful stuff with. There’s a good reason that BASIC was a large part of computer classes in the 80s and early 90s and there were even BASIC programs in math and science text books of the period. The only major drawback I saw during the time is it was SLOOOOOOW. Eventually I solved that with a BASIC compiler for the COCO and later C64/128. Sped up those programs by an order of magnitude.
All those tubes(or valves), diodes, resistors and rotating rust and the many kWs just to play some cheesy music. It sounds absolutely marvelous and I loved it. Thank you for spreading joy. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
About that weird modification on the typewriter - maybe it was used as a stage prop at some point? They wouldn't have had a compatible computer available, but by soldering all inputs together, they could have made it "do something" by applying voltage to a random input.
makes me think of living history centers and wax mannequin displays
If you just wanted activity, you wouldn't have needed all those mods with diodes and resistors... To do that many mods, someone had to have some idea of what they were doing.. If he sends those marked up schematics with the mods to someone like Ken Shiriff or other reverse engineering wiz, maybe they could figure out what was actually intended..
My guess is it was in a location accessible by people who have no idea how to operate it (or, worse, people who think they do) and it ran some sort of program that when you pressed 0 you got something useful printed out but if you pressed any of the disabled keys bad things happened...and to prevent them from revolting they made it so every key became a harmless key. You can have a cranky six year old mash on it and it won't blow the system up, but it'll still print out whatever they need to print.
May it be that it had been rewired to act as some kind of braille typewriter/printing device, that should be operated by only few of the keys pressed simultaneously (bypassing the original keyboard matrix) like playing chords on a piano.
@@DanBowkley Yeah, it seems fairly clear that someone wanted to make quite sure no one could input anything but 0. There's got to have been a reason for that.
Man, seeing the quality that went into machinery back then really makes me appreciate the capabilities of the designers and engineers.
Back in the mid early to mid '70s my dad worked at Lamar University in Beaumont Texas as a computer programmer/operator and instructor. As a pre-teen I spent many an hour hanging out in the computer room loading card decks, removing print outs, decollating paper and shooting rubber bands. I distinctly remember the special programs that he would load on the machine that would play music as you are doing here and make print outs of Santa and the Reindeer, Mona Lisa and a rather interesting lady that I never got to the see the length of. This music is awesome and all those memories came flooding back. Thanks so much for making this happen.
This might be the greatest achievement of 2024. No joke, your first video on this computer was my introduction to you and ever since ever time I see a new video I just HAVE to see what else you got it to do!
This episode was a gem. And heroic to pull off a legit Christmas special in time
The enthusiasm working with those paper tape punches that drove me nuts in the 1970s is worth the price of admission! Well done team!
Now, that's an episode which leaves me with a smile on my face. Much thanks and a Merry Christmas to you, too, as well as to all other viewers.
When I was in college, the science department had a room with a retired Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8/e minicomputer from around 1970, that was still operational. At some point in the PDP-8/e’s lifetime, someone figured out that different mathematical operations caused the CPU to give off different frequencies of RF interference that could be picked up by a nearby transistor radio, and they were able to map the operations to musical notes. We had a set of programs that you could load up, and if you put a radio next to the CPU, it would play a tune.
I love the G15's industrial design. Seeing this piece of history running is fantastic.
That was absolutely fantastic. I love this old tech so much. All the modern stuff we use today was originally developed on these vintage computers. Thank you.
Merry Christmas and a Happy 2025 to you too😀
I had the greatest moment of discovery when I was working in a workshop at the Old GPO research facility at Dollis Hill, North London, I saw a photo of Tommy Flowers holding a small prototype board for Colossus stood under the very window my prep bench sat at. Sadly all my workmates were like; 'Tommy who??' but there's no accounting for taste!
The M25 should be re-named "The Tommy Flowers Orbital" IMO :) Nothing but respect for the man and Bletchley Park is my Mecca.
Christ imagine if you had asked them about Alonzo Church or van Wijngaarden 😂
@@rjy8960 Sadly nothing so grand for the quiet man, if you search for 'Flowers Close, Dollis Hill' you will see the rather more depressing truth. His workshop at least still stands, now a Jewish girls school.
@@thirdeyeblind6369 In all fairness, they don't have the same significance to North Londoners like Tommy. His work literally stopped bombs and rockets landing on our heads.
Someone should make a movie about Tommy Flowers.
When things south because people are cloth-eared gits, I say to myself "Well you'll never had to put up with what Tommy endured"
Oh, does THIS bring back memories! Back when I was a Comp Sci undergrad at Penn State (1972 - 1976), a classmate of mine - a Comp Sci major who was also in Penn State's 'Blue Band' (university marching band) had a couple of card decks and tapes to play music on the comp center's IBM 1401 computer system. (This only worked because the 1401, unlike the big System 370/168, was single user, not time share). The 1401, which was transistor-based, not vacuum tube, would radiate RF from the memory, and a radio set near the system and tuned off-station would pick up the RF emissions (AM, not FM, if I recall correctly). He had a deck that would play a medley of Christmas music. He had another program that would trigger the print hammers on the 1401's attached 1403 line printer (chain printer) to play 'Hail to the Lion' (Penn State football fight song). This, of course, was audible with no radio required. Lot of good memories there...
I actually really like it was modified, this means someone wanted to keep using it, extending its life. Super cool stuff once again!
I just desperately want to know why
The world's most expensive, most complicated reel to reel machine. I absolutely friggen love it! Nicely done David and the crew. Merry Christmas!
Hurrah! Another video. Everything stops for Usagi Electric. Happy Christmas!
Much as I enjoy the subject rather more than I might have guessed before finding this channel, it's the presenter, his occasional guests and their almost child-like joy for what they are doing that has me looking forward to every episode. The occasional bunny is also rather charming. Thank you.
This - is - so - awesome. It's literally the best thing I saw and heard in the last 2 years. Thank you, thank you SO much for doing all this great stuff and sharing it with the world. It's so cool to see that even in these early days of computing, the idea of *somehow* making music with the computer was always one of the first thoughts people had when operating these machines. It's such a connecting feeling with those early operators and programmers, I simply love it.
Pro tip: as far as I understand the documentation snippet that you showed in the video, the program should actually be able to even produce *two voices* of music at the same time, so simple polyphony (melody and one harmony/base note) should be possible as well! When entering the notes, two notes (a, b) at once could be entered with duration applying to both of them, so you can do chords and even polyphony when selecting the same note spanning on one "voice/part" over several steps and changing the other part to another note or a pause.
If documentation for which number/value corresponds to which note is available, maybe the community could even create complex tunes for this contraption. I'd really love to... ;-)
Best regards and a BIG thank you again for this great effort and *indescribably* big service to the preservation of computing history. You are just awesome.
That couldn't have been a better video. Merry Christmas. 🎄
Oh man, I got so excited seeing you playing with this beautiful ancient computer. Your computer reminds me of the movie The Time Travelers from 1964. I am so patient in learning how to make them work. I loved the ending with Silent Night. Great man! Thanks for sharing.
I've listened to just about every kind of synth music that exists but this was definitely a fun new addition to that list
Oh my goodness - what a fantastic end of the year. Thanks for filling my life with so much wonder and excitement.
You’re always saying how the community and others are legends but I’d like to flip the script and say you, my good sir, are a legend yourself.
I’ve never been one to want to meet actors in movies, musicians in bands, etc… but I hope someday this NW Ohio man can shake your hand in person and tell you how much the journeys you’ve taken me on have meant to me.
Merry Christmas, and a happy new year.
dude. what an amazing year. what an amazing machine & man & community!
This made my day...thank you for all the work and sharing it with us. That hum and whirring noise reminds me of when I first joined the Army and was a switchboard operator. Our training facility was an enormous warehouse that housed multiple old-school mainframes and such, and I was in the midnight class. The whole base was dark and everyone was asleep when we'd get to class, but those sounds were always there. I often think back to those warm, comforting sounds of ancient computers just buzzing away.
This typewriter has mechanical tab stops under a flip up cover behind the platen. The tab stops are upside down U shaped clips. Usually the extra clips are stashed way to the right end of the platen where you don’t need tab stops. I had a typewriter like the Bendix, but short platen, back in the 1980s, mine said IBM on the front.
You might want to put tabs every five spaces so that the carriage doesn’t keep flying all the way across when you hit tab on the input.
Nice job on the restoration and thanks for the music. That brought back memories of doing an assignment back in college to get a Kim-1 6502 board to play Christmas music back in 1980 for an assembly programming class. My first attempt sounded about like the first output from the Bendix.
That's cool! Did you still doing computer stuff over the '00s? How did you and your peers adapt with the blazing fast progress?
Careful…. What tab stop spacing to use (8? 4? 5?) is a known point of argument in tech and programming.
@ This one looks like the one I had, which was 12 point Pica type. Five spaces for a tab was pretty typical to give 1/2 inch tabs. Of course you can set it to whatever you want. Some experimentation may be necessary to figure out what the program assumes. Any stops are better than none with the carriage flying across every time it hits a tab. Anything printed after the tab will just be a jumble at the right margin.
@@ppokorny99 There is only one correct answer: 42milliCubits
@@robertosutrisno8604 I am still involved in electronics and data processing. Personally, changing technology doesn’t seem like a big deal. Hopefully most engineers don’t stop learning when they’re handed their diplomas. I prefer the technology we have now. I spent decades fiddling with DIP switches, wire wrap jumpers and what wires were necessary in a null modem to get equipment to talk. That takes away time from real problem solving. I much prefer the current technology environment because it is so much easier to be creative.
Hi there! I just found this video, and I'm sorry about that. I've been subscribed for a few months now, and this is the first video the algorithm thought I needed to see today. And it was right. I needed this. I love the passion you obviously have for this hobby. It legit brought a tear to my eye and it's only for a 70 year old computer playing music for the first time in... god knows how long? Thanks for this, thanks for your commitment to this hobby and its community, and Happy Holidays. :)
The sound of the computer making music pales in comparison to a geek celebrating a win in a Geek Snoopy Bowl! Love it! Nothing beats nerds and their computers!
WOW. This is amazing! What a fun year its been following this project.
Happy holiday and all the best!
Congratulations on getting that 68 year old computer not only working, but playing Christmas music! Love it!
That's fantastic! And reminds me of the story of guys in the Homebrew Computer Club noticing that the Altair would vibrate relative to certain inputs. So they, of course, starting writing code to make it vibrate music.
Seriously, I fucking love this. You're response was some for-real joy! I love seeing videos like this.
This makes me remember the first time I played Pinball Fantasies on my 386SX without sound card and the PC Speaker music was actually good. It was mindblowing.
Thank you for a year of wholesome, unique and educational videos.im only seeing this now but it warms my heart
Your videos have made me grin so much this year, I’m blown away by your achievements! Congratulations and happy Christmas. 🎄
Man this totally blew me away and i'm not a computer type guy . I enjoy the history of how things come to be . People like you are the creators of stuff we all use & don't think about daily and your passion/excitement is contagious for sure.
That's was magical to hear Silent Night from such a historical computer. It lives with Christmas spirit 🎉
I just found your channel a month ago and I’m hooked on this project. As having worked as a software developer AND as a hobbyist car restorer AND (as of tonight) someone who has repaired and runs a vintage receiver at home - we crossing interest streams all over the place. Silent Night almost floored me - keep it up.
the design language of this machine is so perfect. a vacuum tube minicomputer.
Merry Christmas! You are a madman. THANK YOU FOR THIS! These guys were amazing who made this. You're amazing to learn it and restore it and share. THANK YOU!
Watching you going full mad scientist and then laughing your butt off was so infectious, I was laughing for the remainder of the video. You are awesome! Merry Christmas from Germany!
Nice! I love that you show the happiness/relief one feels when working with a problem (bugs) for hours (days) and finally find the fault. It's a fantastic feeling. I wish you a peaceful and great Christmas!
Best Christmas episode ever! 🎄
This is just crazy! Really enjoyed watching the whole process until that musical climax at the end. Amazing video as always, thanks for sharing your journey and Merry Christmas!
Your enthusiasm is highly infectious! You nearly had me shedding tears of joy when "Silent Night" popped out at the end there. A VERY merry Christmas to you and yours! 🎅
The joy of Christmas! I love your enthusiasm. Your videos always make me smile. Merry Christmas!
Man this computer is just insane😂
Wonder if you'd recognize any of the Bendix parts in that thing if you got a chance to look at it up close 😂
"Now the Government wants $200k for a replacement that'll be here in six weeks, but you can go down to O'Reillys and get the same solenoid for a 60-66 Chevy C/K for $20 and get it today!"
But can it play DOOM?
Exactly. I was looking for this question. :DD
they should do that
It can't, it's only 4-bit
@MarkOfficial-f5g oh come on. a bit of quantization and we're off to slaying hell demons with tape drives!
Wonderful! Merry Christmas to you too!
I loved watching you and your very real excitement over getting this grand old lady of computing to play silent night. How inspiring! Merry Christmas!
Apparently the Candes machines (one is shown at 1:41) are TEMPEST shielded Macintosh Plus systems, and there are only a handful of them known to exist. They were apparently sold to EMC labs.
Is that H316 a complete system?
I watched this yesterday and specifically replayed the end section again today. The sheer happiness of getting a little tone generator to work, plus how amazing it is just to hear the computer -- which we've been watching since forever go from nonfunctional to actually usable -- "sing", in its own way
Epic! I don't think there's anyone on youtube that shows your level of excitement and enthusiasm...for anything! Merry Christmas to you!
What memories! My introduction to computers was a G15 in 1960 or 1961. In 1962, I got involved with IBM 1401s, 1620s and 7090s - a career that lasted until my retirement in 1999. Really appreciated your episode.
You so bring back memories of messing about with mini-computers and early micros in the late 60's / early 70's! Happy Christmas from Dorset UK :)
Snap! ... from the Dorset/Hampshire border.
It’s always wonderful seeing a piece of art and computing history working once again! It must truly feel special to have your hands on something as truly awesome as this! Have a great Christmas!
My kitty is absolutely fascinated by the music from the Bendix.
Happy holidays!
Congratulations! The first program to run on the 8-bit computer I built from a kit in 1977 was a similar music program. It used the same sort of simple resistor/capacitor circuit as yours, but attached to the Interrupts Enabled bus line. The music program then enabled and disabled interrupts in different-length loops to create the different square-wave notes.
I'd spent months building that computer. Everything else was ready to go but my video card had been delayed. I wasn't very patient at 18 and was going mad waiting. So I carefully typed in the commands to load the music program and one of its songs into different RAM locations, then the command to run it, all without being able to see anything I'd typed. I wasn't sure it would even work without video installed. I wasn't sure the computer would work at all, actually, though I'd been able to test each card individually in an older friend's similar computer. But it did work, and my computer started playing me a beautiful Bach tune in 4-part harmony. So I think I know how you felt! :D
That was amazing!! Great job!!! Wow!!
Just one BIG Congratulations on getting that old computer to work let alone play Christmas music. You are an awesome individual and of course all the people that helped also along the way !!! I have always wanted to be able to do what you have done here but alas my health has deteriorated and all the things I had collected along the way area now gone. At least I get to live my dream thru you !!! Thanks Usagi Electric
This was magic. Thank you and Merry Christmas
perhaps a 3d print of a vacuum attachment to extract the bits as they are being punched, will aid in the cleanup.
1:25 Beard hair got bigger. Head hair got smaller. What an amazing journey and an amazing amount of work on your part. Congrats. 👏👏👏
That is pretty awesome man. You don't give up easy. Merry Christmas.
Brilliant!! What a beautiful video.
This is why TH-cam was invented. Amazing work.
Out of all the TH-camrs making Christmas specials, this one will forever be the best.
God bless and Merry Christmas.
That is legitimately cool, the machine is fascinating and your enthusiasm is awesome. Have a very Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Love the videos. Your attention to detail is very commendable.
The music sounded great! BTW, back in the day when most printers used ribbons, as a hobbyist, I refreshed dried up ribbons with WD40. I remember that it would get me by.
Would be quite concerned that WD40 might damage the rubber drums, especially on a rare printer.
Merry Christmas, and thanks for the digital music. It brought back memories of working with computers in the early 1970s with a speaker attached to a data line, officially for monitoring the running of test programs, but of course we figured out how to play tunes. Using paper tape then too!
Oh man, that was so much better than “HELLORLD”!
I "like" that that bug in Linux took over a decade to fix...
SILENIGHT
Extremely interesting work and thank you for sharing. Your passion shows and it is fun to watch. All the best to you and your family.
You're my personal hero.
I’m absolutely loving this series! Incredible work, y’all!
This is awesome.
So awesome man. I shed a tear. Merry Christmass.
Wow. Stille Nacht on this computer. I'm absolutely impressed. Now I'm waiting, that you get the typewriter running with ink and all.
I wish you and your beloved people a wonderfull Christmas full of joy.
Awesome. Fabulous and precious antiques. Lots of thanks for your dedication to preserve such marvels of our common past. Merry Christmas 🎉
I love this channel. As it opens up, he's talking about the oldest computer in the US (likely the world) in running condition, happens to be a vacuum tube computer. Also behind him, the world's newest vacuum tube computer, both in the same shot. Nice work, David, and Merry Christmas to you!
The oldest computer in the world is the Harwell Dekatron