[Angostura]

I fondly remember the Pete Shelley album “XL-1” which had a final track that contained a spectrum program.

You dropped the needle on the record and pressed ‘Run’ simultaneously and it would display an animated set of patterns in sync with the music - and the song lyrics

[theblazehen]

For those curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhKQy580STQ

[dingaling]

Fascinating, here's the story from the programmer:

http://www.headen.com/XL1.htm

I'm not sure why he felt he had to write it all in machine code though, sadly he doesn't discuss that decision. Perhaps it was due to the time-dependency of the lyrics?

[ansible]

Without knowing the specifics of that platform, it is likely that the BASIC interpreter was not fast enough to generate the desired effects and animations.

[Angostura]

My guess would be quite simply to overcome memory constraints