You may have never heard of Kane Kramer, but it's likely you use the product and online store he patented. In 1979.
posted by mattholomew on Sep 9, 2008 - 47 comments

The first known recording of a digital computer playing music, recorded by the BBC in 1951. The music played on a Ferantti Mark 1, one of the first commercial general-use computers, and was entered via punchtape and played on a speaker usually used for making clicks and tones to indicate program progress.
posted by Artw on Jun 18, 2008 - 14 comments

PLOrk is the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, a group of students each wielding a laptop synthesizing multiple instruments. PLOrk makes recording of concerts and on-air performances available online.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Sep 16, 2006 - 3 comments

The servers are alive with the sound of music. Wolfram Tones takes patterns found out in the computer universe and converts them to completely original musical scores (which still may sound familiar, weirdly enough). Visitors to the site can then tweak styles, instrumentation and pitch (Phyrigian hexatonic, anyone?). Compositions can be saved, e-mailed or downloaded to your cellphone. Via.
posted by Sully6 on Dec 9, 2005 - 14 comments

"The Band uses unique instrumentation: the music is performed using obsolete computer equipment for instruments. Currently they are using a 1977 Atari 2600 game console, a 1986 portable 286 PC, a 1983 Commodore 64 computer, and a 1985 Epson dot matrix printer."
posted by cody on Oct 28, 2003 - 14 comments

Apple Corps Ltd. sues Apple Computers over AppleMusic. "When it first happened with the iPod, we said, "What could they be thinking?" said a Beatles legal insider, who agreed that posters announcing the iPod from "AppleMusic" were among the most egregious violations. "They knew we had the agreement, and that we'd won a lot of money from them already."
posted by riffola on Sep 11, 2003 - 31 comments

Kings Quest 9, Leisure Suit Larry 8, and Space Quest 7. Sierra's legendary Adventure Gaming francises are stuck in vaporware purgatory. No new Larry according to Al Lowe, but KS9 goes on developed by fans without Roberta Williams, and Scott Murphy's (of The Two Guys from Andromeda) attempt at SQ7 got cancelled. No word from Jane Jenson on a new Gabriel Knight, Police Quest still lives on, although no longer in adventure format. Of course what I was REALLY researching for was the possiblity of a sequel to The Adventures of Willy Beamish. Oh well, at least you can still rock out to all the old Sierra Tunes. Overall, not a bad legacy for a company whose first adventure game was Softporn.
posted by Stan Chin on Nov 16, 2002 - 31 comments

Stick with WinAmp, not RealOne or WMP... Security vulnerability with RealOne and Windows Media Player, but not with WinAmp. Files with embedded URLs or JavaScript can be mislabeled as MP3 and RealOne and WMP will play them and the attachments. WinAmp will just complain... A demonstration can be found here...
posted by Samizdata on Mar 25, 2002 - 30 comments

HP-Diddy! Forget the desktop - HP's coming after your boo-tay!
posted by geronimo_rex on Nov 14, 2001 - 18 comments

Every OS sucks... A nice little ditty (requires either windows media player or flash player).
posted by TNLNYC on May 8, 2001 - 13 comments

"Dear Senator, As a user of the Internet and a fan of music, I am extremely concerned with the issues currently facing the digital music community, particularly those affecting my rights as a consumer to listen to the music that I have purchased. Your hearing has helped the public to understand my concerns."
posted by ericost on Jul 14, 2000 - 1 comment

I hear dead components. How nice that your computer can sing to you when it's breaking down. I wonder if there's any significance to "It's a small world."
posted by jdiaz on Jul 5, 2000 - 8 comments

Yahama has made the Rolls Royce of pianos.
'Built around an Intel Pentium III computer chip, the piano allows functions to be controlled by a user's voice and lets the user watch an artist's performance stored on disc while hearing the concert. When the disc is inserted into a built-in DVD player, the performance is displayed on a computer monitor as keys and pedals move up and down recreating the piano part.'
And only $333,000, where do I sign up?
posted by Mark on Apr 5, 2000 - 2 comments