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The IBM 1401 mainframe runs "Edith"

CuriousMarc2 HN recommenders · 2020–2023
224K views · demo · evergreen · Uploaded 2018-06-02

CuriousMarc runs the program 'Edith' on a 1959 IBM 1401 mainframe at the Computer History Museum. The program prints a famous line-printer image on the vintage machine. The video is part retro-computing demo and part joke.

HN points to it as a fun, well-known example of line-printer art on early IBM hardware, and to the channel for vintage computing history.

Demoscene & retrocomputingHistory of computing

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4 comments from Hacker News

@simcop23872020 · in “Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?”

While much more on the technical side of things, both Ken Shirriff and Curious Marc are great resources for a lot of the historical and technical aspects of things. I'd highly recommend both of them for looking at specific topics of how the computing hardware worked: - Marc's videos on old HP computers, [LINK] - Marc's videos on restoring some old IBM hardware, that includes a good bit of the history that went into them, [LINK] and [VIDEO] - In fact just look at his playlists directly, [LINK] For Ken, I'd look at his chip teardowns and explorations, the AM2901 is on HN this very moment, [LINK] A lot of his articles dig into why the different chip technologies were made and fell out of favor eventually too. [LINK]

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@eMGm4D0zgUAVXc72021 · in “IBM paperweight teardown: Reverse-engineering 1970s memory chips”

Here's a fun IBM line printing video I've discovered thanks to your mention of those: The IBM 1401 mainframe runs "Edith" [VIDEO]

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@kens2022 · in “Nude pictures on early retro PCs – was it possible?”

Before this, there was line printer art; see "The IBM 1401 mainframe runs 'Edith'": [VIDEO]

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@GeorgeTirebiter2023 · in “ASCII FacePalm”

I think using characters to make pictures started with teletype machines - maybe even on typewriters! It was common with ham operators in the 60s (RTTY & Teletype machines) and it surely must have been popular before that. On the IBM 1401 (1959) "Edith" is legendary: [VIDEO]

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