Altair32 Emulator "Easter Egg" idea

[Brad Parker]

shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote:
>> remember a story that you could run a certain program on the Altair and hold
>> an AM radio next to the Altair and you would hear music.
>
>A few years earlier than the Altair, a DECUS package let you do this
>on a PDP-10.  See
>
>  http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/decuslib10-01/01/43,50011/mblurb.txt.html
>
>	(NOTE: For simple, quick-and dirty listening, placing a
>	transistor radio near the MI, or near Bay 2 of the KA10
>	will produce the music, but hardly in Hi Fi.)

I remember seeing this on a IBM 1620.  I have no idea what the program
was called but as I recall (dimly) it used a 'field copy' command which,
I think, would copy digits backward until it hit a field marker.  If I
remember correctly the length of the field affected the frequency heard
(but who knows, maybe it was affecting the duty cycle).  I think it only
had one voice.  It was a nice piece.

Anyway, the repertoire (on punch cards) was large and varied.  I
rememeber the Christmas carols fondly :-)

It all started (much like the 8" floppy story :-) when I asked, "what's
the radio for?".  Next thing I know - music!

That machine also had a very nice Calcomp plotter.  I miss plotters.

-brad