DEC LAB-8/e (PDP-8/e) playing music 

In fact an iPhone 13 is 44,155,844 times faster than the PDP-8/e

The original Game Boy had far more computing power than this computer.

the 70s.... a more civilised time? lulwat

May I ask what computer it was?

These machines produced a lot of RFI! One advantage of using the RFI to make the music is we didn’t need to void the hardware warranty on the computer to connect to one of to one of the lines inside to get an analog audio output!

same

These are FCC Class - A machines, so they are already not approved for consumer use and have plenty of interference! :)

Both #13 and #8 are played here.

+Alexander Luft Around that era, yes.

Bach 2 Part Inventions No.8

Surprise seeing you here! Keep the computers running!

RWBHere I have added a PC04 to the system.

Ah, good! That's nice to hear. A correction, I should have typed PDP8/e. Thank-you for the videos. :-)

It's closer to 50 years old

+thealternativeJ No! Not really!

I think we can hack up SIMH to do it. POLY SPACEWAR defines a device where you load the exact frequency and the duration in microseconds you want each sound element to play. We had a 4K straight-8 playing Bach back in the day. Adding SIMH support for the device would mean enough to accomplish it. Of course the originals outputted to an amp and speaker!

clasystems Why?! During the last years everybody wants to only simulate...! This excludive hobby is for hardware owners. Who own real hardware and suffer for the needed storage. I'm really getting annoyed by all those retro simulation folks! And SIMH is not cycle true. And the CAF instruction?! Stupid idea. To run exactly this sound program, long and short cycles must be modeled correctly... and some sort of CLA-Pulse-Generator would be needed. Special hardware. Realtime requirements on the host machine. If you want electronic music from a modern computer, there are better ways.

We can agree to disagree about WHY to do it, but my point is that the Poly Music register is simulating HARDWARE and not software timing loops. That might require calibration on the host PC, but nothing more than that. Kermit on the PC uses the infamous "calibrated millisecond" routine to avoid the use of the high-speed timer. That amount of quantified time is arbitrary and can be made smaller increments and/or use the high-speed timer and note the program is high-overhead. It's up to the USER as to what is meant by "better" as opposed to my points about that it can be done at all. The CAF instruction is meaningless for the suggested hardware. Read my other post regarding this. Simulating to the nearest TIMED cycle is not relevant if you simulate the proper device! As to "exclusive" I totally disagree with you. As one of the most prolific [as you are also] my work on the simulator is to allow a more powerful program development environment [as in fact I DO CURRENTLY develop programs] and as such, the better the simulator overall the better. Simulation has to be clever and avoid needless overhead-ridden devices, which in this case is merely the incidental RF noise by having an AM radio near the machine to emphasize that a most minimalist PDP-8 can do "something" when a SLIGHTLY more complex machine can not only do a lot more, but it is also easier to simulate the "smarter" hardware. A PDP-8 that RFI's music cannot also play SPACEWAR while one with the music register doing the timing can do both, as we demonstrated on a "straight-8 with 4K just over 50 years ago. I believe that configuration CAN be simulated accurately. The program logic of SPACEWAR is NOT concerned with timing loops at all, it wants to achieve an adequate number of display refreshes on an oscilloscope so that the image is suitable, and if need be, use a darkened room to extend the phosphor image retention effect [without resorting to "slow" amber displays such as is used on the LINC-8]. But the sounds produced are not affected at all by the program speed, just wanting to avoid flicker on the display. On a simulator that would never be an issue as the simulation could be more like a storage scope; the refresh rate could even be made far lower and it would work fine [in simulation]. If we want to isolate ourselves by not allowing new people to see at least in part what can be done by using a simulator virtually anyone can run on a modern computer, we doom our hobby to a dwindling number of people and less wanting to be part of it. I don't want to be the last "big fish" in a dried-up pond. There is actually a remarkable interest in the PDP-8 from younger people these days. If the simulator can help get them interested, no reason to inhibit the process merely to remain "exclusive". I am prepared to write my programs and major operating system development for my personal edification if it comes to that, but I want to be able to be as productive as possible accomplishing it and there are people who want this available to them NOW, and have explicitly asked me for it. All of them are younger than me. I suggest having at least an open mind.

Haha, that‘s very possible! But… from which year is switched on Bach?

@@real_hachti 1968 I think.

@@doctorx0079 1968 fits perfectly.

The teletype paused because the computer had to read the next block off the disk or tape to obtain the rest of the directory to print.

me

You can find it in the old DECUS library, item #8-804.

Yes.

To read the next block off the disk or tape to obtain the rest of the file directory to print.

DEC rebadged some PDP-8 systems to be laboratory systems, so this is a "LAB-8/e".

@@cjimcook I have a Darth Vader Apple ][ rebranded as Bell & Howell which was way bigger than Apple at the time; that will never happen again.