Premiere: 30 April 2009, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
Click here to access the loveletter ARCHIVE.
(Click images to enlarge.)
From August 1953 to May 1954 strange love-letters appeared on the notice board of Manchester University’s Computer Department:
DARLING SWEETHEART
YOU ARE MY AVID FELLOW FEELING. MY AFFECTION CURIOUSLY CLINGS TO YOUR PASSIONATE WISH. MY LIKING YEARNS FOR YOUR HEART. YOU ARE MY WISTFUL SYMPATHY: MY TENDER LIKING.
YOURS BEAUTIFULLY
M. U. C.
The acronym M.U.C. stood for “Manchester University Computer”, the earliest electronic, programmable and universal calculating machine worldwide; the fully functional prototype was completed in June 1948 and was based on Williams tubes as means of volatile storage. One of the very first software developers, Christopher Strachey (1916–1975), had used the built-in random generator of the Ferranti Mark I, the first industrially produced computer of this kind, to generate texts that are intended to express and arouse emotions.
DARLING SWEETHEART
YOU ARE MY AVID FELLOW FEELING. MY AFFECTION CURIOUSLY CLINGS TO YOUR PASSIONATE WISH. MY LIKING YEARNS FOR YOUR HEART. YOU ARE MY WISTFUL SYMPATHY: MY TENDER LIKING.
YOURS BEAUTIFULLY
M. U. C.
The acronym M.U.C. stood for “Manchester University Computer”, the earliest electronic, programmable and universal calculating machine worldwide; the fully functional prototype was completed in June 1948 and was based on Williams tubes as means of volatile storage. One of the very first software developers, Christopher Strachey (1916–1975), had used the built-in random generator of the Ferranti Mark I, the first industrially produced computer of this kind, to generate texts that are intended to express and arouse emotions.
(Click images to enlarge.)
The “LoveLetters_1.0” exhibit consists of two parts. In the exhibition hall, the visitors are confronted with a functional replica of the Ferranti Mark I, which shows the functionality and also the potential risks of the first computer. If the visitor employs the right switches of the reconstructed user interface console, it executes the original code of Strachey’s software. A loveletter is then generated and projected outside on a huge surface in a public building, where everybody can read it.
If the visitor does manage to type his or her name in Baudot code on the computer’s type-writer buttons, the love letter will carry this signature. “LoveLetters_1.0” allows people to publicly address algorithmically generated love letters to each other.
Pushing an illuminated button copies the poem onto the visitor’s USB stick. Additionally, it can be downloaded from the project’s website. Once a day, at a randomly selected moment, the machine automatically prints a love letter on the restored Creed 7 teleprinter from 1931. (This communication device helped organise the British response to Hitler’s threats.) When the printout is complete, the Mark 1 plays “God Save the Queen” on the “hooter” (loudspeaker).
On the electronic tabloid display, the visitor can investigate the historical background of the first computer by studying authentic documents and photos of the time. The lab notebook of one of its main constructors, Geoff Tootill, is presented alongside the maintenance engineers’ logbook from July 1951, all the manuals for the machine (Turing 1952, Prinz 1952) and several sets of photos.
Tabloid Video
Produced by Kunststiftung NRW, ZKM, Karlsruhe.