15 Bizarre Experiments From the Early Days of Computing
By Ace Vincent
| Published
Computing history is filled with strange experiments that pushed the boundaries of what machines could do. Long before sleek smartphones and powerful laptops became everyday tools, computer pioneers were conducting odd, ambitious, and sometimes questionable experiments with the primitive technology available to them.
These early innovations, despite their peculiarities, laid the groundwork for the digital revolution we enjoy today. Here is a list of 15 bizarre experiments from computing’s early days that showcase just how creative, determined, and occasionally eccentric computer scientists could be.
The Mechanical Mouse Maze Solver
In 1952, mathematician Claude Shannon created a mechanical mouse named “Theseus” that could navigate a maze using electromagnetic relays and circuits. This wasn’t just any maze—Shannon could rearrange the walls, and the mechanical rodent would ‘learn’ the new layout through trial and error.
The experiment demonstrated early machine learning concepts using purely mechanical components, all at a time when computers filled entire rooms.
The Cold War Chess Computer
During the height of Cold War tensions, engineers built “The Turk,” a chess-playing computer designed to prove Western technological superiority. The massive machine used vacuum tubes and magnetic tape storage to analyze chess positions, though it could only think a few moves ahead.
When it defeated a Soviet chess master in a highly publicized 1957 match, news headlines proclaimed it as evidence of American ingenuity, although historians later discovered the game had been partially staged for propaganda purposes.
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Teaching Computers to Sing
Bell Labs researchers in 1961 programmed an IBM 7094 computer to sing “Daisy Bell” (also known as “Bicycle Built for Two”), creating the first computer-synthesized human voice. The eerie, mechanical rendition required programming every note and phoneme individually through punch cards.
This experiment directly inspired Arthur C. Clarke when writing “2001: A Space Odyssey,” where the computer HAL 9000 sings the same song as its circuits are being disconnected.
The Psychologist Computer
In 1966, MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA, a program that mimicked a psychotherapist by recognizing keywords and responding with pre-programmed phrases. The experiment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, but Weizenbaum was disturbed when users began forming emotional attachments to the program and sharing deeply personal information.
Despite ELIZA’s simplicity, people projected understanding onto the machine, demonstrating how easily humans could be fooled by the appearance of intelligence.
The Electric Sheep Dream
Computer scientist Scott Draves created the “Electric Sheep” experiment in 1999, connecting computers worldwide to create evolving digital “organisms” while their users slept. The networked machines would share computational power to generate colorful, morphing fractal animations based on evolutionary algorithms.
These digital dreamscapes would evolve according to user preferences, with more popular patterns receiving “genetic” advantages in the next generation, merging art with early distributed computing.
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The Oregon Trail Mortality Study
In 1971, three student teachers created “The Oregon Trail” as an educational tool, but it evolved into an unintentional psychological experiment. The primitive game, first played on a teletype machine with no graphics, tracked how students responded to the constant threat of digital death from dysentery, snake bites, and river crossings.
Researchers were surprised to find that students retained historical facts better when their digital pioneers faced authentic mortality risks, leading to educational theories about emotional investment in learning.
The Kitchen Computer Failure
Honeywell released the H316 “Kitchen Computer” in 1969, marketed to housewives as a way to store recipes and create shopping lists. The absurd device cost $10,600 (equivalent to over $80,000 today), required the user to learn binary code, and came with a cutting board accessory.
The marketing experiment was a spectacular failure—not a single unit sold commercially—but it represented the first attempt to introduce computers into domestic spaces rather than scientific laboratories.
The Space War Theft
In 1962, MIT students created “Spacewar!” on a PDP-1 computer, one of the first video games. What made this experiment bizarre was that they essentially “stole” thousands of dollars worth of computing time on the university’s expensive equipment.
The game became so popular that computer labs across America reported similar “thefts” of computing resources, leading several institutions to ban games entirely. The experiment inadvertently demonstrated the addictive potential of interactive computing decades before gaming addiction became recognized.
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The Bug Memorial
In 1947, computer scientist Grace Hopper found a moth trapped in a relay of the Harvard Mark II computer, causing a malfunction. Her team taped the insect into the machine’s logbook with the annotation “first actual case of bug being found.”
This literal computer bug was preserved as a bizarre memorial at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, where it remained until being transferred to the Smithsonian. The experiment unintentionally created computing’s most famous terminology for system errors.
The Gambling Computer
In 1961, Edward Thorp and Claude Shannon built the world’s first wearable computer—a cigarette-pack sized device designed to predict roulette outcomes. The strange contraption used timing calculations transmitted through a hidden earpiece to predict where the ball would land with surprising accuracy.
Their secret casino experiments yielded a 44% advantage over chance before Nevada outlawed such devices. The experimental technology later influenced legitimate developments in wearable computing decades before smartwatches appeared.
The Digital LSD Trip
In 1966, researchers at the University of Utah connected an IBM mainframe to a crude head-mounted display to create the first virtual reality environment. The bizarre experiment involved projecting computer-generated shapes and patterns that users described as resembling psychedelic experiences.
One participant remained in the virtual environment for 48 straight hours, reporting “machine dreams” and temporary difficulty distinguishing real objects from digital ones after the experiment concluded.
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The Six-Year Computation
Between 1949 and 1955, mathematicians used the ENIAC computer to calculate pi to 2,037 decimal places, the longest continuous computation attempted at that time. The bizarre aspect was how the machine had to be constantly supervised, team members slept in shifts on cots beside the massive computer to prevent overheating.
When the building experienced power fluctuations, they would restart calculations from the beginning, making the actual computational time closer to 70 hours spread across six years of attempts.
The Computer Art Controversy
In 1965, mathematician A. Michael Noll created computer-generated art that mimicked Mondrian’s painting style. In a controversial experiment, he showed both the computer-made images and actual Mondrian paintings to 100 subjects. Not only did 59% prefer the computer-generated art, but a significant number mistakenly identified the computer’s work as the human artist’s.
The experiment sparked outrage in the art world and led to debates about creativity that continue in today’s AI art discussions.
The Artificial Paranoia Project
Stanford researchers in 1971 created PARRY, a computer program simulating a person with paranoid schizophrenia. The bizarre experiment involved connecting PARRY to ELIZA (the therapist program) to see if they could communicate meaningfully.
Transcripts of their “conversations” were presented to psychiatrists alongside real patient interviews, and the doctors could only correctly identify the computer dialogues 48% of the time, barely better than random chance. This strange electronic therapy session raised unsettling questions about the nature of human communication.
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The Computer In A Van
In 1979, Stanford researchers drove a peculiar-looking van around campus that contained a computer capable of recognizing street signs and navigating without human intervention. The bizarre experiment involved a room-sized computer crammed into the back of the vehicle, with cameras mounted on the roof.
The strange-looking vehicle could only travel at about 2 miles per hour and frequently crashed into objects, but it represented one of the first autonomous vehicle experiments, decades before self-driving cars became a research priority.
Computing’s Peculiar Path Forward
These early computing experiments, with all their strangeness and creativity, show how the digital technologies we take for granted emerged from decades of unconventional thinking. Many of these bizarre investigations met with failure, ridicule, or ethical concerns, yet each contributed something essential to our digital landscape.
When we use voice assistants, play games, or rely on artificial intelligence today, we’re benefiting from the peculiar ingenuity of those early computing pioneers who weren’t afraid to experiment with outlandish ideas.
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