内容来源：https://www.engadget.com/audio/someone-programmed-a-65-year-old-computer-to-play-boards-of-canadas-olson-220857441.html?src=rss

内容总结：

近日，一位技术专家通过纸带输入方式，让一台拥有65年历史的PDP-1古董计算机成功演奏了苏格兰电子乐团"博德之门"的经典曲目《奥尔森》。这台诞生于1959年的计算机曾因运行史上首批电子游戏《太空战争》而闻名，如今其音乐潜力再度被发掘。

在计算机历史博物馆工程师彼得·萨姆森的操作下，这首充满空灵感的电子音乐经过特殊编译，被转化为打孔纸带上的指令序列。整个演奏系统依托萨姆森上世纪60年代在麻省理工学院求学时开发的"和声编译器"，通过控制计算机四个状态指示灯的明暗频率，将灯泡转换为四个方波发生器。这些音频信号经过混音处理后，最终经由纸带输入计算机实现音乐重放。

尽管每首乐曲都需经历繁琐的纸带打孔流程，但通过这台庞然大物传来的复古音效，与博德之门乐队自带的怀旧风格形成了奇妙共鸣，展现了跨越半个世纪的技术与艺术对话。

中文翻译：

有人为一台65岁高龄的计算机成功编程，使其能够演奏"博德之门"乐队的《奥尔森》曲目。演奏数据必须通过纸带手动输入PDP-1计算机。

这台程序数据处理器-1（PDP-1）最广为人知的身份或许是史上首批电子游戏《太空战争》的运行平台，但正如前文视频所展示的，它也能化身为一台体型庞大、运行迟缓的音乐播放器。视频中，工程师兼计算机历史博物馆讲解员彼得·萨姆森正将精心编程的纸带输入PDP-1，播放着"博德之门"乐队的《奥尔森》。这是乔·林奇PDP-1音乐项目的最终成果——他将这首意境悠远的短篇乐章转化为这台古董计算机能够重现的旋律。

据林奇在GitHub上的说明，用于将《奥尔森》编译至纸带的"和声编译器"实为萨姆森在1960年代麻省理工学院求学期间所创，最初旨在通过计算机的四个灯泡播放音频。该程序原用于重现古典乐章，但紧急情况下也能演绎90年代的电子乐。"这些灯泡本用于向操作员显示程序状态，"林奇写道，"但彼得创新性地将其改造成四个方波发生器（或可理解为四个1位数模转换器），通过以音频频率控制灯泡明灭来实现。"每个灯泡产生的信号经过立体声通道混音后，经由模拟器转录并合并为单一文件，最终通过手工打孔的方式记录在输入PDP-1的纸带上。

即便播放最简单的乐曲，这套流程也堪称繁复。但当听到"博德之门"那本就充满怀旧气息的乐章从这台更古老的经典计算机中流淌而出时，一切付出都显得意义非凡。

英文来源：

Someone programmed a 65-year old computer to play Boards of Canada's 'Olson'
Tracks have to be manually fed into the PDP-1 via paper tape.
The Programmed Data Processor-1 (PDP-1) is perhaps most recognizable as the home of Spacewar!, one of the world's first video games, but as the video above proves, it also works as an enormous and very slow iPod, too.
In the video, Boards of Canada's "Olson" is playing off of paper tape that's carefully fed and programmed into the PDP-1 by engineer and Computer History Museum docent Peter Samson. It's the final product of Joe Lynch's PDP-1.music project, an attempt to translate the short and atmospheric song into something the PDP-1 can reproduce.
As Lynch writes on GitHub, the "Harmony Compiler" used to translate "Olson" to paper tape was actually created by Samson to play audio through four of computer's lightbulbs while he was a student at MIT in the 1960s. He used it to recreate classical music, but it'll work with '90s electronic music in a pinch, too.
"While these bulbs were originally intended to provide program status information to the computer operator," Lynch writes, "Peter repurposed four of these light bulbs into four square wave generators (or four 1-bit DACs, put another way), by turning the bulbs on and off at audio frequencies." The signal from each bulb is then downmixed into stereo audio channels, transcribed via an emulator and merged into a single file that has to be manually punched into the paper tape that's fed into the PDP-1.
It's a laborious process for playing even the simplest of songs, but it's worth it to hear Boards of Canada's already nostalgic music from an even older classic computer.