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Making Music with CPU Activity

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the fun-and-games dept.

Tails writes "Ever wonder how you could make that useless radio interference your CPU generates into interesting noise? Forcing operations on his CPU and Memory bus, Berke Durak has made a tunable FM signal out of the radio activity his motherboard creates.. " Didn't we see this stuff in Triumph of the Nerds? Looks nifty tho.

10 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. More songs about computers and radios by John+Campbell · · Score: 2

    My dad's workplace used to have a mini (couldn't identify the type... I was very young at the time) that would play the Star-Spangled Banner on the AM band when it was shut down for the night. I think it was the same one where its only response to any kind of syntax error was "EH?", on the theory that, 90% of the time, you'd know what you did wrong without being told...

  2. Something's missing here... by sjames · · Score: 2

    The discussion in the messages had very little to do with music from system noise.

    The topic under discussion was software that secretly transmits information by taking advantage of the radio emissions.

    The music angle is a simple diversion/nostalgia trip, think security!

    1. Re:Something's missing here... by sjames · · Score: 2

      The problem there is that you'll only get the masking signal while rc5des is scheduled. If someone is running a process on your machine that transmits data, their reciever will allready be set up to reject that along with random signals caused by other processes.

    2. Re:Something's missing here... by sjames · · Score: 2

      One of the messages was talking about generating an FSK signal. It should be possable to hook an AM radio up to a sound card, and decode the resulting audio signal. Hmmm....caffine kicking in...

    3. Re:Something's missing here... by sjames · · Score: 2

      train the signal analysis software to recognize certains actions by pattern matching?

      Intriguing possability!

      I wonder if adding a random element to the length of each timeslice in the scheduler would make such an analysis harder?

    4. Re:Something's missing here... by sjames · · Score: 2

      What if they aren't running some for of *NIX? We resort to the trivial solution ;)

      ;)...

      The random timeslice does look tempting. It MIGHT have a detrimental effect on system performance, but I doubt it would be severe. The real question is a good fast source of randomness. Perhaps a really hot cup of tea.....

  3. Re:Receiving the transmission with a computer by sjames · · Score: 2

    Perhaps one of the cheezier sound cards would make a good reciever. They seem to pick up all sorts of EMI anyway.

    That is interesting about the unused address. Perhaps later today, I'll hack a module together to probe non-existant addresses. It may or may not pick anything up, but it might also make a good test for poorly designed MBs

  4. hMMMM by Accipiter · · Score: 2
    I've heard that if you record the frequencies from your CPU, and play them backwards, you get scary Pro-Microsoft and Pro-Intel babble. :)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

    --

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
    (If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't. :P)

  5. Re:AM music too by rde · · Score: 2

    Making it be done on FM is magic.
    Not really. The limited edition of the 2.2.10 kernel that was given away with Kellogg's Cornflakes had a special frequency modulation module; it works best when combined with Kellogg's proprietary 'snap crackle pop' sound card. It's only got three channels, and the second one sounds like an old LP, but it's still very effective. The entire musical output of Fatboy Slim can be generated overnight and released as MP3s when you get up in the morning.

  6. AM music too by SEWilco · · Score: 2

    Making a system play music on an AM radio is a 30-year-old trick. Making it be done on FM is magic.