Re: OLD FART LOOPERS (was average looper age)

[Alex Stahl <alex@pixar.com>]

>>--- Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  When I first started sampling...
>>>  [clicks dentures together and wheezes]
>>>  we were sampling on a PDP-11!
>>>
>>>  It had 64MB of memory and a 20MB removable disk
>>>  where the disk driver was the size of a washing machine!
>>
>>If it was the same disk drive I used on the old PDP at my school, it was 
>only
>>12MB. Had a disk pack that was about 2" tall that snapped into place 
>with a
>>handle on the top. The product name escapes my feeble memory.
>
>hmm, I was PRETTY sure it was 20MB.  it was an RLX something-or-other.

Sounds like the RL-02, listed as 10Mb here:

http://zane.brouhaha.com/healyzh/rl02.html

My first first-hand computer music experience was with a PDP-8 at 
OMSI, which had been programmed to execute loops of machine language 
that were timed to take as long as one cycle of various musical 
pitches. You could run these meaningless programs and hold an AM 
radio up to the side of the rack; the interference would play a 
little tune. It was so fascinating we'd do it over and over, does 
that count as looping?