![[Happy birthday] 60 years ago a computer started to sing.](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/C4D12AQF1XQm0wiUlmg/article-cover_image-shrink_600_2000/article-cover_image-shrink_600_2000/0/1623773471120?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=hmcLYvwdHwOqYHmQcT1GE2sFLJncuH3bT7-zZGQkRvw)
[Happy birthday] 60 years ago a computer started to sing.
Today is World Music Day, a great opportunity to remember that 60y ago the first computer was programmed to sing "Daisy Bell". Written in 1892 by British songwriter Harry Dacre, teams from Bell Labs used it for the earliest demonstration of computer speech synthesis on a state of the art IBM 704. A nice vintage sound to get your day going...
Of course movie lovers, science fiction fans and all of you geeks out there know the song best for its central role in “ 2001: A Space Odyssey” as the astronaut Dave Bowman takes HAL apart. A tribute by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke to HAL’s great ancestor, the first IBM computer to ever sing. A digital last breath out of Hal's silicium body and soul.
If you also want to pay a tribute to the greatest singing ancestor to your phone, don’t hesitate to ask your Siri, Google Assistant or Alexa to sing Daisy Bell for you on this World Music Day.