Ongoing History Daily: The earliest electronica EVER!

The idea of a computer device generating music is so common today that we don’t even think of it. But back in the late 40s and early 50s, getting a computer to play back some music was the stuff of science fiction.

Engineers thought they could do it, but in the pre-transistor era with its ancient programming languages, this was a daunting task.

Enter Alan Turing, the brilliant British computer genius who led the team to the breaking of the Nazi’s Enigma code machine (as told in the movie The Imitation Game), also had an interest in creating what amounted to the earliest electronica in history. 

Using a machine that took up most of the ground floor of the Computing Machine Laboratory in Manchester, Turing and his people managed to get it to play back “God Save the Queen,” “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and the Glenn Miller big band tune, “In the Mood.” The year was 1951.