Computer games, computer music and love letters ❤️

Christopher Strachey was a teacher at the private Harrow school who spent time at the National Physical Laboratory learning to use computers. He knew Alan Turing from his time at King's College, Cambridge and came to Manchester to use the Ferranti Mark computer.

Computer games

Strachey undertook some remarkable challenges writing a program that could play a complete game of draughts (checkers) called ENTER that first ran on the Ferranti Mark in 1951. His program presented the game visually as it progressed on one of the machine's display tubes, making it the first example of a computer video game.

see Programming ENTER: Christopher Strachey‘s Draughts Program www.computerconservationsociety.org/resurrection/res60.htm#f

Computer music

The Ferranti Mark had a `hoot` function. that was used to sound a prompt when an action was required. Turing realised that this could be reprogrammed to make different notes and created a routine that played a note of a specified pitch.

Strachey wrote programs using Turing's the music code to play music. His first success was the National Anthem, to be played at the end of a game of draughts. The earliest existing recording of computer-generated music was recorded in 1951 by the BBC, in which the Ferranti Mark can be heard playing the National Anthem, Baa Baa Black Sheep and In the Mood.

See Restoring the first recording of computer music
blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2016/09/restoring-the-first-recording-of-computer-music.html

Love letters

Like Turing, Strachey was fascinated by the possibilities that computers offered. In particular, he thought about the application of computers within the arts and wrote a program for the Ferranti Mark computer that would generate love letters, one of the first examples of computational linguistics. While the resulting letters are unlikely to stir the emotions, it was a remarkable achievement to write a program on a machine with such limited power.

The challenges that the early computer pioneers attempted are an indication of the mood of the times that the newly invented computers were exciting, powerful machines of unknown and maybe limitless utility that would change the world.

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Honey Dear

My sympathetic affection beautifully attracts your affectionate enthusiasm. You are my loving adoration: my breathless adoration. My fellow feeling breathlessly hopes for your dear eagerness. My lovesick adoration cherishes your avid ardour.

Yours wistfully
M. U. C.
(Manchester University Computer)

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More information on Strachey at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Strachey

Some rights reserved

Taken in: UK / England / Hulme (show map)

Taken on: January 1, 1951

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Sets appears in: • Tuned • Loved more » • Computed • Manchestered • Gamed • Read • Educated « less

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