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by masswerk·2y ago·view on hn ↗
For an actual GUI on a PDP-1 (the PDP-1 featured a light pen for input), see the very first DECUS proceedings [1], "A World Oceanographic Data Display System" (1962) by Ed Fredkin (who was one of the most ardent proponents of the PDP-1), page 32.

(This issue also features a paper on Spacewar! by J.M. Graetz, "Spacewar. Real-Time Capabilities of the PDP-1".)

[1] https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/decus/confProceedings/DECUS_19...

The PDP-1 provided also the basis for the first commercial CAD system by Itek.

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20130129213055/http://cadhistory...

2 comments
Also in that 1962 DECUS report, it appears that holy wars are older than me. In particular, there's a short debate between a proponent of MACRO vs. another who preferred DECAL for programming. These were two different assemblers that were offered for PDP-1 programmers.

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp1/FRAP_DECAL_I...

Hi! We are grateful for all your nice archeological work, may we please ask to make "Baa Baa Black Sheep" on the Ferranti available again based on the scans? Many thanks!
That's not me. Sorry.
:) From what I can recall, it was a java (applet) Ferranti simulator running a typed in copy of the song obtained from a library (Manchester?). It was part of a research/art installation project. I'm not so sure now, but .at, and masswerk seemed to be involved. I'll look into it, or if someone here recognizes it...
Do you mean this one (Manchester Mark I emulator in Java by David Link)? https://web.archive.org/web/20110723062727/http://alpha60.de...

Related to the topic of music on the Mark I: "BBC finds oldest digital music recording", https://bit-tech.net/news/beeb-finds-oldest-digital-music-re...

See also this paper for a bit more background: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-53280-6_...

Thank you! Although it wasn't the loveletter I was thinking of, but you are right: it was probably this, because it also plays some music and it is covered in the paper. There was an instance on the web, so those who could not make it to the installation could also experience it. According to alpha60.de, there was a Group Exhibition "Love Letters", Gallery Gabriele Senn in Vienna from 12.05.2023 to 28.07.2023. I think it was this: https://web.archive.org/web/20110723063000/http://alpha60.de... but the jar never loads from the archive. This is what I am after!
The key connection here is that David Link's emulation running "Love Letters" was an exhibit at the dOCUMENTA exhibition in 2012 and the Mark I thus entered the art world.

> David Link’s eponymous installation LoveLetters was first shown at dOCUMENTA(13), 2012. In it, the artist and computer archeologist Link romantically resurrects the earliest electronic, programmable and universal calculating machine worldwide: the Manchester University Computer or MUC. In 1953 and out of nowhere, it started to produce strange and touching love letters, addressed to anonymous people, or perhaps machines. The present version Love Letters – core is also based on the original source code by Christopher Strachey, a friend and colleague of Alan M. Turing, from 1951, and accompanied by two photographic prints of love letters on vintage CR tubes in the first on-screen font ever.

(Gallery Gabriele Senn, https://galeriesenn.at/love-letters/)