Peter Samson and Computer Music Technology

By actaylor1
  • Birth of Peter R. Samson in Fitchburg, Massachusetts

    Birth of Peter R. Samson in Fitchburg, Massachusetts

  • Peter joins the Tech Model Railroad Club, Freshman year at MIT

    Peter joins the Tech Model Railroad Club, Freshman year at MIT

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    Peter Samson studies at MIT

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    Develops star display for Spacewar!

  • Harmony Compiler

    Harmony Compiler

    Samson creates the Harmony compiler, which allows music to be coded with music on the PDP-1
  • Tech Model Railroad Club Dictionary

    Tech Model Railroad Club Dictionary

    Coins the term "Hack" as:
    "1) an article or project without constructive end
    2) a project undertaken on bad self-advice
    3) an entropy booster
    4) to produce, or attempt to produce, a hack(3)" Link text
  • Andy Moorer hears Samson's Bach Fugues

    Andy Moorer hears Samson's Bach Fugues

    Andy Moorer heard Samson's Bach fugues in real time, a hack completed by Peter Samson. “The tones were made by taking the top four bits of the accumulator (there was only one) of the
    PDP-1 and routing each one to an audio amplifier
    (vacuum-tube) and speaker. Each bit was one voice.
    You toggled the bits at the desired frequency and you
    got four square-wave tones.” (D. Garrett Loy, Life and Times of the Samson Box, 28.) Link text

  • Samson Joins DEC

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    Wrote the first FORTRAN compiler for PDP-6

  • Programs PDP-6 to contain New York subway system schedules

    Programs PDP-6 to contain New York subway system schedules

    Samson uses this "hack" to win a competition for traveling the entire New York subway system in a minimum time.

  • Samson joins Systems Concepts, Inc.

    Systems Concepts is located in San Francisco.
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    Systems Concepts Digital Synthesizer (Samson Box) is developed

    Samson first held discussions regarding his Systems Concepts Digital Synthesizer in 1972. The synthesizer was commissioned in 1975 by John Chowning, John
    Grey, James (“Andy”) Moorer, and Loren Rush,
    founders of the Center for Computer Research in
    Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University and funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts,
  • Samson Box is delivered to Stanford University

    Samson Box is delivered to Stanford University

    "At 9:00 AM on 9 December 1977, Samson wheeled
    a tall green metal box into the machine room at
    SAIL" (D. Gareth Loy, Life and Times of the Samson Box, 34.)

  • Samson Box hardware update

    A hardware update implemented in 1984 by Samson added the option to control the computer and interact with the Sampson Box in real-time through the KIM-1 clavier keyboard

  • Samson Box decommissioned as CCRMA principal music system

  • Appeared at the Computer History Museum

    Appeared at the Computer History Museum

    Peter Samson attended to help celebrate the restoration of a PDP-1. Samson was a member of the restoration team.
    Link text