一位计算机科学家和一位作曲家恢复了有史以来第一次由计算机产生的音乐的古老记录。1951年，杰克·科普兰和杰森·朗在电脑先驱艾伦·图灵的实验室里重新录制了一段包括“上帝保佑女王”在内的三首旋律的录音。

这些音乐片段是在图灵的原型MarkII电脑上**的，使用图灵所知的“hooter”这台机器极其基本的扬声器。您可以听下面的录音，以确切地听到它是如何获得这个名字的：

在为大英图书馆写的一篇博文中，科普兰和朗解释说，图灵研究出了如何让汽笛以高速重复短促的声音来演奏近似的音符。然而，图灵对这项技术理论之外的创新不太感兴趣，他在一本计算机手册（实际上是他第一本）中发表了关于这一问题的笔记后，就不再管这只汽笛了。一位名叫克里斯托弗·斯特拉奇（Christopher Strachey）的业余钢琴家和一位即将成为程序员的年轻教师说服图灵让他在一夜之间接触MarkⅡ。

下面是科普兰和接下来发生的事情：

'I sat in front of this enormous machine', Strachey said, 'with four or five rows of twenty switches and things, in a room that felt like the control room of a battle-ship.' It was the first of a lifetime of all-night programming sessi***. In the morning, to onlookers' astonishment the computer raucously hooted out the National Anthem. Turing, his usual monosyllabic self, said enthusiastically 'Good show'. Strachey could hardly have thought of a better way to get attention: a few weeks later he received a letter offering him a job at the computing lab.

The BBC recording, made some time later the same year, included not only the National Anthem but also an endearing, if rather brash, rendition of the nursery rhyme 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' as well as a reedy and wooden performance of Glenn Miller’s famous hit 'In the Mood'. There are unsettled questi*** about the authorship of the three routines that played these recorded melodies. In the wake of Strachey's tour de force a number of people in the lab started writing music programs: even the routine that played the National Anthem in the recording may have been a retouched version of Strachey's original.

1951年录制的12英寸音乐曲，最初的12英寸唱片已经有一段时间了，但当哥普兰（教授）和朗格（作曲家）听了这张唱片时，他们发现声音不准确。通过比较音乐和他们知道马克II的技术局限性，他们发现在录音过程中频率发生了变化。通过精确地计算图灵电脑能播放什么音符，他们能够将旋律恢复到原来的声音。图灵对马克二世的鸣笛的描述，仍然和以往一样相关。

上图显示图灵（右）和马克II计算机的控制台。通过英国图书馆和曼彻斯特大学计算机科学学院。