Abstract
In the early months of 2003 two related events occurred: the installation of the audio terminal TAU2 at the Museum of Computing Instruments in Pisa and the inauguration of a centre for the restoration of audio objects at the L. Cherubini Conservatory of Music in Florence, where the now obsolete TAU2 had been for many years. The restoration of tape recordings, LP records, and other material produced on the TAU2 system and its control language TAUMUS is one of the first activities at the centre (MART for Music, Audio, Recovery/Restoration, Technology). These events and the fact that I had participated directly in the first projects involving the use of computers in music have made me reflect on what has happened since the 70’s in the development of computer music in Italy. I readily accepted the invitation to review the activities in Pisa in this period, in particular the unforgettable experience involving the creation of the computer music system TAU2 – TAUMUS. Prof. Franco Denoth of IEI (Istituto Elaborazione Informazioni) at the CNR in Pisa proposed the project to meet the needs of M. Pietro Grossi’s initiatives in the field of Computer Music. Thanks to the partnership between experts at the CNUCE Institute and hardware designers at IEI, coordinated by Prof. Denoth, the system was functioning by 1975. The ambitious goal was the construction of an audio terminal to interface like any peripheral device to the mainframe IBM 360/67 of the CNUCE, to allow the electronic production of sounds and the execution of polyphonic and polytimbric music in real time using the program TAUMUS. Thanks to the creative use of additive synthesis and other specific solutions, the TAU2 produced good phonic quality and allowed direct interaction between the user and the computer. Entrusting the execution of the pieces to a system other than the one used for elaboration meant significantly lower usage in the CPU time of the computer with respect to other systems of the period.
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