Love letters written by the Ferranti Mark 1 computer.
Image Source: www.unz.com

Love letters written by the Ferranti Mark 1 computer.

first page of Strachey's The Thinking Machine
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Detail map of London, England, United Kingdom,Manchester, England, United Kingdom Overview map of London, England, United Kingdom,Manchester, England, United Kingdom

A: London, England, United Kingdom, B: Manchester, England, United Kingdom

Christopher Strachey Programs the Ferranti Mark I to Write Love Letters

10/1954
Early computer print-out showing a portrait of Christopher Strachey. Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

Early computer print-out showing a portrait of Christopher Strachey. Bodleian Library, Oxford.

In the October 1954 issue of the journal Enounter (pp. 25-31) British computer scientist Christopher Strachey published "The 'Thinking' Machine."  Strachey's paper included two love letters written by the Ferranti Mark I computer at the University of Manchester running a program which he had written. This represented the first use of a computer to write literary texts.

Herzogenrath & Nierhoff-Wielk, Ex Machina-Frühe Computergrafik bis 1979. . . . Ex Machina- Early Computer Graphics to 1979 (2007) 229.

Timeline Themes

Software
Art and Science, Medicine, Technology
Fiction, Poetry, Theater; Literature
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Neural Networks

Related Entries

Ferranti Mark I:

The First Ferranti Mark I is Delivered
The First Electronic Computer in Canada, the FERUT, is a Ferranti Mark I
The First Widely Read English Book on Electronic Computing