Re-enactment of the "Stochastic Texts" by Theo Lutz
Toni Bernhart, Institute of Literary Studies Universität Stuttgart
Klemens Krause, Computermuseum Universität Stuttgart
Vera Hildenbrandt, Deutschen Literaturarchiv Marbach
Theo Lutz was one of the first in the world to succeed in randomly generating a text with a computer. As a diploma student at the Institute of Electrical Engineering at the University of Stuttgart, he wrote a program in July 1959 with which he generated his "Stochastic Texts" on a Zuse Z22. The original program was discovered three years ago and is now in the archives of the German Literature Archive (DLA) Marbach.
On June 22, 2022, Klemens Krause, Christian Corti and Toni Bernhart reproduced Lutz's experiment on an LGP 30, a tube-equipped magnetic drum computer from 1958, at the Computer Museum of the University of Stuttgart. Since June 22, 2022, was Konrad Zuse's 112th birthday, the program was also demonstrated on the PDP-12.
Afterwards, Klemens Krause and Toni Bernhart discussed the results with Vera Hildenbrandt and Roland S. Kamzelak from the DLA Marbach.
The livestream was recorded by Katja Stefanie Engstler and is available as a video recording on the You-Tube channel of the Computer Museum.
