Altair 8800b Fool on the Hill Demo

[gmodderr]

Techno music from the 70's :D

[Druffmaul]

Amazing! I've been dying to hear this for about 15 years, ever since I heard Lee Felsenstein recount the first time it was demo'd at the Homebrew Computer Club circa 1975. Thanks for posting!

[sjdme]

The speed value was good for my original Altair 8800 and its 1ghz 8080 chip. Your video still plays faster! On some Altair clones with much faster cpu's, the whole song goes by in 2 seconds! The delay value then needs to be adjusted to 2 bytes. Nice to hear the old song. Thanks, Steve Dompier

[billdeg]

@sjdme Not sure exactly what you mean, but the clock speed of the 8800b is the same as the original 8800 (and the 8800a). The speed variation was due to a change I made to the original program's speed setting.  Good catch. Just a personal taste thing. Have you even tried this on an IMSAI?

[billdeg]

@sjdme

Oops I did not see that this is you, Steve Dompier, the author of the music program! Of course you'd know about the 8800's...silly me.  Glad you enjoyed it.

Bill

[carlcartman]

I would love to have been at the Homebrew Computer Club when they played that. That moment, right there, is when the world changed. People had Altairs before that, but all they did was flash their lights: this was the first time that anyone got the Altair to actually DO anything.

[fridgehorse]

Einstein reportedly said "imagination is more important than knowledge", when you look at this metal box & then see where computers are today, imagination/creativity certainly played it's part. Incredible.

[jason24568]

The first midi sound.

[talktalktalktalktalk]

@jason24568 You're wrong in so many ways

[cartlemmy]

Gives me chills, especially since the intonation isn't perfect. Programming on these machines seems so much more magic than what we do today.

[JasonB1969]

That was impressive to hear the AM radio playing "fool on the hill" via the Altair 8800.

There was a program called "Accidental Empires" presented by Robert X Cringely shown here in the UK and he was talking to someone from the Homebrew Computer Club.

The part of a meeting when Steve Dompier setup his Altair 8800 and an AM Radio to then play "Fool On The Hill" is in the program.

[pietrora]

is a light box!

[larrydel]

RIP Ed Roberts

America will miss this national treasure, who, along with his friends, was a massive, worldwide job creator, that also spurred global productivity gains by leveraging human intellect with the "home computer". Ed Robert's method of computer architecture will always be known to me as the "Altair Bus".

Larry DeLuca Port Washington, New York April 4, 2010

[nf1n1ty666]

Wow, awesome.

[billdeg]

Steve Dompier, who discovered the phenomenon and originally wrote about it in 1976, said it was the "switching noise of the 8800" - this is a common thing with computers, they all have to be shielded to protect against the interference they produce.

[marlls1989]

Boy, I which I had an AM radio siting idle here, to see if I can do something so cool with either my macbook or my workstation!

But I even don't have an fm radio, just in the car...

[marlls1989]

can I do the same with the magnetic noise of a modern PC?

is it power flutuation from the PSU? data transfer? clock modulation? a special card generating modulated high current designed to interfer with the radio?

[Imprezaman555]

@marlls1989 a) not without an add on card, at least it is very unlikely. Modern computers are much better with noise, I have a radio set up next to my computer, if I quickly sweep through the station the only noise I can hear is the 60hz ac hum, and sometimes an odd station will pick up some noise, but not from the computer, turning off, unplugging it, no effect. As to your other question, I wish I could be more helpfull but I don't know how the prg works. I would guess its with psu noise.

[douro20]

@marlls1989

It can be done using the fluctuating magnetic field from a CRT monitor. A program called "Tempest for Eliza" was made to demonstrate this.

[sonick808]

such a beautiful specimen. I sir, am jealous.

[Keijz74]

Looks like a mutated table radio from Dr. Who!

[AAAttendee]

WOW!

[echoes89]

omg great