4 ms·

The love letter generator created by Alan Turing and Christopher Strachey

77 points by samclemens 2y ago

terminalcommand 2y ago
This was a very cool read. Programmers were programmers even back in the day of Mark I. It is cool to see that they dabbled in natural language processing back then. This is years before Eliza and they were working on generating English prose based on English grammar. Very impressive! The music generation program they wrote is equally impressive. The recording that was playing shows that they were adept enough to time events in the computer so good that they could playback songs. This was back in the early 1950s.
- thaliaarchi 2y ago
  This was also a year before Mad Libs was invented in 1953, using the same template-filling style.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Avoid syndicated articles, source: https://daily.jstor.org/the-love-letter-generator-that-foretold-chatgpt/ https://daily.jstor.org/the-love-letter-generator-that-foret... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40948325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40948325)
RodgerTheGreat 2y ago
I couldn't help myself: http://beyondloom.com/decker/goofs/loveletter.html http://beyondloom.com/decker/goofs/loveletter.html
- pmarreck 2y ago
  hah, awesome demo of Decker!
- tetris11 2y ago
  This is beautiful. What is this?
  - RodgerTheGreat 2y ago
    Decker is a "multimedia sketchpad". It's a drawing program, a database, and a rapid prototyping environment. A "deck" can be exported as a self-contained, self-executing .html file (as seen above), and there's also a non-browser-based native application. It uses a functional scripting language named Lil which incorporates ideas from the APL family. You can learn more and play with some additional examples here: http://beyondloom.com/decker/ http://beyondloom.com/decker/
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      So an extremely niche and stylized web-based Hypercard. Odd, but Hypercard WAS damn near the pinnacle of empowering software for normal people.
      - RodgerTheGreat 2y ago
        Aside from the scripting language, a major innovation Decker has over HyperCard is the concept of "Contraptions": user-defined interactive widgets that can be reused by simply copying and pasting them between decks. If you can make a card, you can make a contraption, and then you can share it as a new building block: https://itch.io/t/2690007/the-contraption-bazaar https://itch.io/t/2690007/the-contraption-bazaar Decker users have made a variety of zines, toys, visual novels, and play aids for tabletop games, in many cases without any custom scripting: https://itch.io/games/tag-decker https://itch.io/games/tag-decker
totetsu 2y ago
We've come a long way to get buttplug.io today.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
oiphl 2y ago
[dead]

77 points by samclemens 2y ago

This was a very cool read. Programmers were programmers even back in the day of Mark I. It is cool to see that they dabbled in natural language processing back then. This is years before Eliza and they were working on generating English prose based on English grammar. Very impressive! The music generation program they wrote is equally impressive. The recording that was playing shows that they were adept enough to time events in the computer so good that they could playback songs. This was back in the early 1950s.

thaliaarchi 2y ago
This was also a year before Mad Libs was invented in 1953, using the same template-filling style.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Avoid syndicated articles, source: https://daily.jstor.org/the-love-letter-generator-that-foretold-chatgpt/ https://daily.jstor.org/the-love-letter-generator-that-foret... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40948325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40948325)

RodgerTheGreat 2y ago

I couldn't help myself: http://beyondloom.com/decker/goofs/loveletter.html http://beyondloom.com/decker/goofs/loveletter.html

pmarreck 2y ago
hah, awesome demo of Decker!
tetris11 2y ago
This is beautiful. What is this?
- RodgerTheGreat 2y ago
  Decker is a "multimedia sketchpad". It's a drawing program, a database, and a rapid prototyping environment. A "deck" can be exported as a self-contained, self-executing .html file (as seen above), and there's also a non-browser-based native application. It uses a functional scripting language named Lil which incorporates ideas from the APL family. You can learn more and play with some additional examples here: http://beyondloom.com/decker/ http://beyondloom.com/decker/
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    So an extremely niche and stylized web-based Hypercard. Odd, but Hypercard WAS damn near the pinnacle of empowering software for normal people.
    - RodgerTheGreat 2y ago
      Aside from the scripting language, a major innovation Decker has over HyperCard is the concept of "Contraptions": user-defined interactive widgets that can be reused by simply copying and pasting them between decks. If you can make a card, you can make a contraption, and then you can share it as a new building block: https://itch.io/t/2690007/the-contraption-bazaar https://itch.io/t/2690007/the-contraption-bazaar Decker users have made a variety of zines, toys, visual novels, and play aids for tabletop games, in many cases without any custom scripting: https://itch.io/games/tag-decker https://itch.io/games/tag-decker

totetsu 2y ago

We've come a long way to get buttplug.io today.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

oiphl 2y ago

[dead]