{"id":1076,"date":"2008-08-24T00:05:23","date_gmt":"2008-08-24T05:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2008-09-10T14:39:01","modified_gmt":"2008-09-10T19:39:01","slug":"mirror-mirror-on-the-table-play-a-tune-if-youre-able","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=1076","title":{"rendered":"Mirror, mirror, on the table, play a tune, if you’re able…"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the latest update<\/a> from the LaserMotive blog, we are given a video glimpse of their tracking mirror, one which is ‘musically inclined’ (pun intended).<\/p>\n

[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MEuqrUen404[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘tuning the mirrors’<\/em>, doesn’t it?\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the second post LaserMotive has\u00a0given us\u00a0like this – I blogged about the last one here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0identify with\u00a0the last line in the current post; “If we get the time, maybe we\u2019ll program the mirror to play a song\u2026”<\/em>\u00a0 If you’re an old hand in the data processing \/ IT field like I am (and I’m talking the 60’s and 70’s here), you might remember how some of us (who had too much time on our hands)\u00a0programmed the various computer peripherals to play songs.\u00a0 There were no speakers or music software\u00a0involved, these were tunes which were ‘played’ on line printers, with the different series of print keys striking the paper and producing different notes.\u00a0 Card readers provided snare effects while the access arms on the disk drives provided percussion.\u00a0 Some of this stuff got pretty exotic – I remember hearing “She”ll be coming ’round the mountain<\/em>” in two-part harmony (two different printers) while a half-dozen other peripherals provided the background beat.\u00a0 Oddly enough, IBM was a big provider of this kind of stuff – they used it for computer demos.\u00a0 I wish I could find a video of one on YouTube or something – it really was cool.<\/p>\n

I love geeky stuff…<\/p>\n

10September, 2008 – Update.\u00a0 I’ve been able to locate some tunes, on the Computer History Museum website<\/a>,\u00a0being played on an IBM 1403 Printer.\u00a0 There is no video (pity), but there are mp3 files of several songs (no ‘She’ll be coming ’round the mountain, though).\u00a0 I’ve copied one here (“Born Free”) which you can play by clicking on the arrow, below.<\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:\/media\/1403_BornFree.mp3]<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the website, these songs were a gift from Ron Mak.\u00a0 Thanks Ron – it brings back great memories.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the latest update from the LaserMotive blog, we are given a video glimpse of their tracking mirror, one which is ‘musically inclined’ (pun intended). [youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MEuqrUen404[\/youtube] . Kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘tuning the mirrors’, doesn’t it?\u00a0 This is the second post LaserMotive has\u00a0given us\u00a0like this – I blogged about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-announcements","category-spaceelevatorcompetitions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}