Music On The PDP-1X LP

Original 196? US private pressing on PPDX Records (catalog # 450), with generic white cover.

This is an extraordinarily rare and obscure artifact of early computer history, an uncredited and mostly anonymous vinyl LP record containing some of the very earliest synthesized computer music ever created and recorded. There is a wealth of information and history online about the PDP-1 computer and the first generation of proto-hackers at MIT (like Peter Samson) who used the PDP-1 to build the world's first-ever videogames and create the first examples of computer music. But I cannot find a single reference anywhere online to the existence of this Music On The PDP-1X LP issued on PPDX Records. (The PDP-1X, according to wikipedia, was a PDP-1 machine with a few advancements - it had paging modifications and twos complement arithmetic.)

A little bit of this music is available online, but most of the PDP-1X music on this record is otherwise unavailable. This LP comes in a plain white cover and there are no credits whatsoever aside from the composers. The record and cover have the look and feel of a 1960's private pressing, so this album is most likely a contemporary document of PDP-1 music pressed non-commercially in a limited quantity in the early- or mid-1960's by one of the handful of MIT students and professors who worked on PDP-1 music (such as William B. Ackerman, or Dan Smith, or Pete Samson.) This LP is probably part of an MIT class project or thesis presentation from the early- or mid-1960's, and if so, there would have only been a handful of copies pressed. I found this LP in Cambridge, Mass.

Here is a 320 kbps mp3 of a full track ripped directly from this LP without any audio editing:

Download an mp3 of Music On The PDP-1X -- Sullivan: Pinafore and search ampnoise records eBay store for listings with mp3 downloads.ampmp3

computerhistory.org: Many computers are capable of making music by hard-wiring their low-order bit to a speaker system and simply turning this bit on or off rapidly. Experiments with the PDP-1, undertaken by MIT undergraduate Peter Samson, however, went a step further and showed the computer was capable of producing four-note polyphony.

Creation of a ‘harmony compiler’ by Samson allowed for sophisticated music to be played and soon the total quantity of music encoded for the PDP-1 reached several hours.

Tracks:

Bach: Trio Sonata No. 1 Bach: Little Fugue In G Bach: Sonata No. 140 Handel: Fifth Harpsichord Suite "Harmonious Blacksmith" Mozart: Horn Concerto k.412 Schubert: Unfinished Symphony Mozart: Sonata In C Sullivan: Pinafore Traditional: Rule Britannia

CONDITION: Cover VG+ / Vinyl NM-   the original blank cover shows some aging and tanning around the edges; vinyl is extremely clean, just slight wear, plays very well.

Graded conservatively using Goldmine standards [G / G+ / VG / VG+ / NM / ]
grade only used if record is brand new.
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