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Boing Boing

The first recording of computer music was playing at the wrong pitch for decades

Ellsworth Toohey
Mar 19, 2026
∙ Paid

In 1951, a BBC outside broadcast unit brought a portable acetate disc cutter to the Manchester Computing Machine Laboratory and recorded three melodies played by Alan Turing’s Mark II computer. The machine filled much of the ground floor. Today, only a 12-inch acetate disc survives — the computer was scrapped long ago, according to the British Library.

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