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19 Jun 2008
The earliest known recordings of computer-generated music have come to light in the form of a patchy rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep and a shortened version of In the Mood.
The tracks were recorded by the BBC at Manchester University in 1951 capturing the songs from a Ferranti Mark 1 computer, a commercial version of the 60 year-old Baby Machine.
Ferranti Mark 1 was the immediate successor to the renowned Baby computer, generally regarded as the forerunner of all modern computers.
The recording was unearthed as part of the preparations for Friday's Digital 60 Day to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the birth of the 'Baby' or Small Scale Experimental Machine.
The tracks were found in the archives of the Computer Conservation Society, making digital recording an official UK first.
Previously the oldest recordings were thought to have been in the US on an IBM mainframe computer at Bell Labs in 1957.
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Do you agree?
MP3 you say?
That really was facinating stuff. Kind of errie to listen to. I looked into the site and the file that you heard playing was an FLV flash movie file, like youtube files. I downloaded it and so if you really did want an MP3 it would take a second to convert it and I could send it to you if you like?
Posted by: FaeGiN 21 Jun 2008
Won't please the Yanks!
I'm sure they will "find" an earlier recording that pre-dates us! They don't like us having more history than them. Good old Auntie Beeb, no chance of an mp3 version for my ring-tone is there! :)
Posted by: Andy Faulkner (England) 20 Jun 2008