The “Wow!” source radio emission entered the receiver of the Big Ear radio telescope at about 11:16 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time on August 15, 1977. […] The IBM 1130 computer running the N50CH program interacted with the receiver to acquire digital intensity values from each of 50 channels (each channel was 10 kHz = 10,000 hertz wide) once each second. Ten of these values were combined to generate one number for each channel and the number for each channel was converted to a single number or letter and printed out (2 seconds were needed for the analysis and printout of each line of information). This entire operation could be handled by the computer with no person present except for starting, stopping, resetting, and restarting the computer.

After the data began to come in regularly, we began a systematic survey of the 100 degrees of declination visible to the radio telescope. (from +64 degrees down to -36 degrees). I took on the task of looking at the computer printout on a regular basis. Gene Mikesell, our mechanical technician at the Big Ear, was trained to stop, reset and restart the IBM 1130 computer every 3 or 4 days. On his way to Columbus for supplies he would deliver the computer printouts to my home.

A few days after the August 15, 1977 detection (probably on August 19), I began my routine review of the computer printout from the multi-day run that began on August 15th. A few pages into the computer printout I was astonished to see the string (sequence) of numbers and characters “6EQUJ5” in channel 2 of the printout. I immediately recognized this as the pattern we would expect to see from a narrowband (i.e., narrow frequency band) radio source of small angular diameter in the sky. In the red pen I was using I immediately highlighted those six characters and wrote the notation “Wow!” in the left margin of the computer printout opposite them.

A diagram of major IBM computers from Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib/Dream Machines.

Edward Zajec, RAM 13, 1969
Computer: IBM 7044
Printer: CalComp Plotter 563

Zajec writes of the evolution of his work in Artist and the Computer:

At first I designed programs in which, given a basic repertoire of signs and a set of combinatory rules, the qualitative value of each possible combination depended on a predetermined balance between probability and chance. Later, I tried to extend the autonomy of the programs by developing systems which could produce a number of different combinatory strategies. This was achieved by introducing a determinant tendency which kept referring to a few basic criteria for guidance and qualitative feedback.

COMPUTER IS A GOOD ILLUSTRATOR / COMPUTER DESIGN SERIES NO.2 (Random Walk Kennedy), 1967
Idea and design: Masao Kohmura, Program: Haruki Tsuchiya

Computer Technique Group (CTG), Return to a Square, 1969

The Computer Technique Group was a Japanese collective of art and engineering students founded by Masao Kohmura and Haruki Tsuchiya in the late 60’s and partially funded by the IBM Scientific Data Center.

The CTG Manifesto, from 1966 explains:

CTG is an active think tank that takes advantage of well developed electronic computer systems and makes them serve the needs of human beings. We, the post-war generation, have been exploring our place in machine society for all our born days. Living without machines is attractive in its own way in our dreadful age but it is regressive evolution back towards apes, and is different from the creative evolution we are aiming for.
We will tame the computer’s appealing transcendental charm and restrain it from serving established power. This stance is the way to solve complicated problems in the machine society.
We do not praise machine civilization, nor do we criticise it. By a strategic collaboration with artists, scientists and other creative people from a wide variety of backgrounds, we will deliberate carefully the relationships between human beings and machines, and how we should live in the computer age.

They were a bit more business savvy than the average sixties artist collective, operating as a multi-faceted creative and analytical technology studio:

[The CTG] opened up an office in downtown Tokyo and aimed to have two kinds of activities. As a design office, it managed graphic design works and sold art works to galleries. In parallel, it was a think tank with expertise in computer analysis. CTG members often appeared in journals and on TV. Unanimous agreement was a CTG rule and the creative staff for each work were nominated following discussion and copyright is still reserved by all the members even now.

The group was part of several important computer/media art shows of the era, including Cybernetic Serendipity and the Venice Biennale of 1970. However, by that time the CTG had disbanded. Haruki Tsuchiya’s explained this in the groups final pamphlet, Goodbye Computer Art!:

My primary interest is in ascertaining the significance of art for human beings and how it is being realised in our society. This may be an exaggeration, but I say that computer art is a revolt against the whole of technology…. Today, new relationships between engineers and artists are expected for computer art. It has become a thing of the past for me.

The best source of information on the CTG is a 2007 article from The Bulletin of Computer Arts Society, which examines the group and Kohmura’s post-CTG activity. There is a pdf available online.

A photograph from the backpack manufacturer, Wilderness Experience’s 1975 catalog.

The picture was taken at Jim’s cabin in the mountains. A close observer will notice we are drinking red wine and the bottle is a white wine bottle. We had already finished the white wine and had moved onto red. The papers in front were Jim’s attempt at learning IBM RPG2 computer programming.

Available at 20x200.

It’s 1975 And This Man Is About To Show You The Future (Scenes From An IBM Slide Presentation)