Sounds Kids Today Have Never Heard

Dial-up modems, a cacophony of digital bleeps and bloops that is ingrained in many of our brains. But would a member of Gen Z even recognize it? How about AOL Instant Messenger? Or a rotary phone?
Today on The List Show, we're telling the history of 7 sounds that kids today have probably never heard. I mean, when was the last time YOU used a mechanical typewriter?
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[@JasonHalversonjaydog]

speaking of computers, the sound a dot matrix printer makes brings me back.i used them all throughout school, they were so loud then having to tear the little strips off the sides with the holes in them the printer used to advace the paper

[@erinmalone2669]

Every now and then I go to a place that uses dotmatrix still with the edges that are perforated that you have to tear off. I guess they want to keep using it until it’s completely dead but somewhere out there there is a company that is making long folded sheets of perforated paper.

[@brambleheart]

They still used them as of 2012 when I was 7 and in the after school program. We used to draw on that paper. It’s amazing how since schools don’t have that much of a budget to upgrade their tech, they become sanctuaries for otherwise outdated items.

[@ConradSpoke]

The projector sound I miss most is the sound of the *end* of the film running out of a projector. On a multi-track major motion picture it was an indescribably beauteous cacophony that lasted several seconds, a strange combination of grinding crunches, percussive burps, bleeps, bloops and staccato whomps. The last time I heard it was in 2002 at a late showing of "Moulin Rouge!" I was all alone, right in the middle of a perfect theater. I suspected this would be the last time I ever heard it. It was, and it was glorious.

[@johnstevenson9956]

I used to work on computers and we called that weird set of noises the "handshake". We were so familiar with the noises, that the differences could tell us something of what was wrong. Those AOL CDs became so ubiquitous, people started using them as driveway reflectors, or hung out to scare birds and animals out of gardens.

[@MultiPaulinator]

I found one time that microwaving CDs creates elaborate, fractal-like burn patterns in their data layers. AOL provided me with many subjects to explore this on.

[@werepixie]

I much preferred when AOL sent me unlimited floppy disks.

[@jamiesuejeffery]

I used those as mug coasters when I was a poor college student. Wait. Who am I kidding? I used those as free frisbees!

[@thomasrogers8239]

We used the CDs as Frisbee's

[@lonerChise]

my still uses a few old AOL cds as coasters!

[@MLeoDaalder]

About the nostalgic sound of a mechanical typewriter. My mom used to work for a physics lab in the 1970s-1980s, and had to convert handwritten manuscripts into a type-set periodical. When she had to type manuscripts out on a mechanical type-writer she had to close the door to her office (technically, she was the secretary to the head researcher), since some of the old researchers there associated the sound with machine-gun fire from WW2.

[@missheadbanger]

The THX sound effect before a movie, the vibration could be felt especially when in a movie theater. The company was originally owned by George Lucas but had changed hands twice over the years and is still around today.

[@eldorados_lost_searcher]

The company was founded because Lucas wasn't satisfied with the varying quality of theater sound systems, as I recall.

[@kenbrown2808]

and their theme sound has never been as good as the original.

[@fireborn]

My away message from when DSL was still a thing was “If you are reading this, I am probably at your hiuse or in my way!”

[@tempgar]

The "rewind" sound is a musical version of the sound old tape-based answering machines made when they would rewind. You'd come home, and if a light was blinking to let you know someone had called, you'd hit the rewind button, and that small tape reel would quickly and with a sound similar to your musical version, rewind to the point on the tape marked for the last unplayed message. It was quite rapid and quite high pitched. In some cases, probably where the sound effect came from, it actually played the messages backwards and at a very high speed while rewinding, thus raising the pitch considerably. That's what the musical version you played is imitating. After rewind to the beginning of message (recored signal on tape the machine would detect) you'd play the taped message. After not too many messages, you'd have to rewind to beginning of all the messages to set it to start recording again, and this time, since it was using the whole tape instead of just a message or two, the sound would last longer.

[@CAMacKenzie]

As a 72 year old who grew up with typewriters and took typing class in junior high school, I can understand wanting to have a typewriter as backup, particularly a non-electric which will not become a paperweight in the event of a power failure. I actually still have such a portable. I don't use it much, and I don't miss using it. The keys hitting the paper are noisy. Having to carefully allign the paper on the patten and make sure that the paper doesn't wrinkle when you crank it down, making sure the paper doesn't get misalligned when making corrections--it's almost impossible to avoid vertical misallignment. Annoying as computers can be at times, and, of course, since I didn't grow up with them, there's so much I've never learned to do and never will--it's like learning a foreign language as an adult--it's still easier than having to type some long document on a typewriter.

[@billscheitzach601]

How could she talk about the sounds of the rotary dial phone and the noise of the coin return on pay phones and totally ignore the dial tone you needed to hear before you began to dial?

[@Laura-kl7vi]

Because even 10 years ago, many people had both a landline and a cell phone. Especially families I'd imagine most people over 20 (still is "young people") have at least heard a landline phone. In some areas of the US still there is no cell service, only landlines, fwiw. That's not common at all though.

[@lesnyk255]

the grunt of a floppy disk drive saving data... TV test pattern... the "Star Spangled Banner" when a TV station signs off for the night... the ringing of a telephone... the chatter of baseball cards clipped to your bicycle's axle... the hiss-pop of a phonograph needle touching down on the outer edge of an LP - or the pop as the needle lifts off at the end... for that matter, the sound of a scratchy record... the rattle of a VW beetle's engine... the loose end of an audio tape slapping as the take-up reel spins around freely...

[@nmgg6928]

I would like to add the distinct buzz that pre 90s tvs made when turned on as well as the clicking of the channel tuner dial. Oh and the old calculators with the paper roll and the pull arm lol

[@Meagan-Renee]

@@nmgg6928 I remember being a really small child and clicking the channel tuner dial even when the TV was off because the click was SO satisfying!

[@Laura-kl7vi]

Kids still do the card thing on bikes, which isn't surprising because bikes haven't changed. In the 70s, we usually used playing cards not baseball cards but the sound was exactly the same.

[@SeanLamb-I-Am]

I'm a little surprised that you didn't mention the "You've got mail!" sound when talking about AOL. Whenever I logged in, the modem handshake was always followed pretty closely by that phrase. The return action of a typewriter, fully known as the "carriage return" is where we get the term for the "return" key on computer keyboards (now usually labeled as "Enter", but also often includes an arrow that mimics the typewriter's action indicating where the cursor moves in text applications). In programming languages, there is a specific character, usually abbreviated as CR, which is an acronym for carriage return, that moves the text cursor back to the start of the line; then to get it onto the next line, the programmer sends an LF (line feed) character, which together is known as CRLF, which is the usual action for the return key.

[@Laura-kl7vi]

Strange that AOL wasn't ubiquitous so many people (me!) never heard Any AOL sounds.

[@lesnyk255]

I still remember perusing core dumps, where CR/LF pairs (characters #13 & 10) marked the end of one line & the beginning of another....

[@2miscme]

My mom worked for Bell so we always had the most up to date phones. I loved the key phone we had when I was a teenager. We had 2 lines, 1 for each and we never answered each other's lines. This came in handy when I got in trouble at school and got a call home. (I only gave them my phone #, hehe!) When I was a little kid in the 70s, my mom took me to one of the offices in downtown Chicago to check the phone museum room and the video phones that used to be in the lobby. It was so cool, at the time. Now I won't even use facetime, LOL! Loved this video, thanks for the flashback!

[@HayTatsuko]

Knowing how good your dialup connection was about to be just from the sounds the modems were making during their handshake was kind of awesome. It sounded to me like a digital version of throwing a gearshift lever around and stomping on the clutch.

[@chrismcdonald2947]

Worked as a theatre projectionist for years and that steady hum of film through the rollers and gears was sooo comforting. Most unstressed I have ever been in my life was a shift with these and no problems

[@kenbrown2808]

for many years, my musical tag was "sixteen tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford. another sound many kids today have probably never heard, but is even more apt today than it was, then.

[@iCONICAACINOCi]

Another day older and deeper in dept... I'm 34, from the UK, and must have listened to that song a thousand times when I was young.

[@kenbrown2808]

@@iCONICAACINOCi I've got some bad news for you... you're not a kid, any more.

[@reverendmothercheryl2276]

A sound that I remember in the public library came from the large echoey hall that held the card catalogue. The sound was the satisfying clack of a card catalogue drawer being closed.

[@Beautyonthebrain_]

YESSSS!!!

[@SD1fruitbat]

You might occasionally hear the sound of a typewriter, but the sound of a room full of typists going at full tilt is much rarer.

[@AndrewPonti]

As a 35 year old Millennial, this was nice to hear. Especially the dial up modem and the AIM sounds are the most visceral. My grandparents still had a rotary phone and a typewriter they let us play around on in the 90s, so I certainly remember those sounds (even if they aren't of the generation). The payphone, of course, was there as well.

[@glamgirlsg]

When I was a kid in the 90's we had dial-up internet for a little while. As an adult in 2019-2020 I worked at a local print shop/mail center and we had one of those printer/copier/fax machine combos. I thought I had forgotten those screeches and beeps, but they still haunt my nightmares to this day.

[@SireRose]

90s Modems talking to each other: Whrrrzzzsskkkkrrrzzzssshhh EDM artists: Write that down! Write that down!

[@XaloGunner]

3:11 "Now that I can see you, I don't think you're worth a second glance." I just saw Dashboard a few months ago for the 1st time after 20ish years of being a fan. It was great!

[@trish8964]

The sound of a record dropping onto the playing table of a record player and the the sound of the needle raising, swinging and then settling down onto the record.

[@jacforswear18]

The kids are definitely back into records now!

[@joanhoffman3702]

Good times, good memories. ❤

[@williamkenney339]

How about sonic booms? When I was in grammar school the "sound of freedom" was frequently heard overhead. People complained, and the Air Force ordered its pilots to move the high speed stuff offshore. Forty tears later, I was startled by the sound of two sonic booms I heard from a boat 20 miles south of Long Island. It had been so long since I heard them it took me a while to work out what they were.

[@ChadwickTheChad]

It used to be a PM for private message, which makes a lot more sense than DM for direct message. Not sure why it changed.

[@SD1fruitbat]

Because nothing is private anymore?

[@JALaflinOfficial]

As long as no one's sliding into my BMs, I don't care what they call it.

[@jacforswear18]

I don't know that it makes "more sense." just different sense contextually. DM was used in the context of spaces where there were forums, which are an indirect form of messaging, even when you are replying to comments in a thread.

[@The-Powell-Group]

The sound of hitting the left of brake, floor mounted 'brights' switch in your car....the sound of the refrigerator door latch, before magnetic safety seals... the sound of pulling off the pull tab on a soda can...the sound of the 'clicker' used to change TV channel up or down... the various sounds of the TV station going off the air for the night....the sound of the glass bottles clanging as you load them into the outside milk delivery/return ice box....

[@lovemesomeslippers]

I remember all of these! Clicker was my favorite.

[@erinmalone2669]

There was a special sound, and a single use flash as well. Also slideshow projectors with the sound of the carousel advancing and one slide being dropped into the viewing area. Film strips from elementary school were also pretty sweet.

[@kandipiatkowski8589]

The sound I miss the most is the sound of coins clinking in a slot machine tray. When I visited Las Vegas in 2014, I found that they had switched to either depositing winnings on a players card or a paper receipt that is given to the cashier to cash out.

[@Mokey56001]

Back in the 70s and 80s, my mom would help out at church taking the typed up bulletin for the Sunday Service and copy them via a mimeograph machine. My brothers and I would help out by (at first) collating, folding and stapling the sheets together. When we got older we would take our turns turning the crank or in refilling the ink. Its hard to describe the sound it would make but the smell of it was heady!

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

In the 1990s, I worked at two different telephone exchanges which I had a lot to do with (actually, a few others when standing in for the other chief clerks, but I didn't get to visit the exchange itself, they were just in the building). The first one, when I was a network engineering clerk, was moving from the analogue Strowger to digital (fibre optics - that blew my mind!) and the other was where we still had operators. Even though you could dial directly by then, you could still call the operator if you had any problems. Sometimes they'd get calls from worried relatives about people who hadn't answered a call in a certain amount of time, and they'd take over, contact the local emergency services and make sure everything was okay. Anything an operator could do, they did! Not having an operator these days makes calling someone really impersonal. I got a throb in my wrists on hearing the typewriter noise! Took me back to the RSI I got from writing the 'how to run this office' book I decided to do when I'd had not enough training to take over the job myself!

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

I'm in my 60s, and have worked in electronics since the late 1970s. This was basic tech back then. AT&T (Ma Bell) had a near monopoly on telephone, in the US, and owned the telephone lines. At one time you could not "electrically" connect to those lines. So early modems were acoustically coupled, onto analog lines. I do no not miss the typewriter. Used it way too much for writing school papers. Just imagine, you're typing up a paper, in the wee hours of the morning. You miss entering a whole paragraph, in the middle of page 3 of and 8 page report. Not a problem on a modern computer. Just plain HELL on a typewriter !

[@disorganizedorg]

I recall setting up Hayes modem command strings. I am old.

[@ubserrano8180]

I think is funny how taking pictures with your smartphone plays a sound sampled from an analog shutter opening as a confirmation that a picture has taken.

[@Linusgump]

I still have a rotary phone. It’s an original 1930 Western Electric model 302. It still works and is currently plugged into my fax line. Yes, I have a fax machine too.

[@Chris.Cook.]

I think the most emo I got may have been from Rise Against, with Swing Life Away. I used to use AOL IM, ICQ, and Yahoo Messenger all simultaneously, because instant messaging was the Wild West back then. Nothing was standardized, and everyone had favorites. If I had to pick a favorite, I may be partial to ICQ. It was certainly the clunkiest, but boy howdy did it have a lot of features once you untangled them.

[@k0lpA]

yeah thats a good song. didn't know it was emo.. thought it was just punk.. im usually into metal but I think the singer is really good

[@tabilangewis5059]

I made sure my kids know what I grew up with, they have a VCR and we have a Hello Kitty landline 😂 they love playing whatever VHS they have on the shelf and always rewind it. It’s just so precious❤

[@MentalFloss]

This is AWESOME.

[@tabilangewis5059]

@@MentalFloss OMG🥹

[@tabilangewis5059]

@@MentalFloss I never forget to be awesome 😎

[@gma1343]

I found myself smiling as I recalled these wonderful sounds of a time long past. Thank you for the memories❤

[@TrailRat2000]

I have grand nostalgia of the old electric milkfloats whirring their way along the streets in the early hours. My dad's milkfloat had a deep clunk noise everytime he put his foot on the pedal. Then there was the rattle of all the glass bottles bouncing around in their crates behind the cab. Modern electric vehicles these days don't have that sound. Too quiet, too smooth.

[@Laura-kl7vi]

I never even heard the word "milkfloat" before, and I was born in the 60's. I'm guessing it's British English word? . We probably called it just a milk-truck and they weren't electric.

[@TrailRat2000]

@@Laura-kl7vi - yup, I'm from North London and they've always been called milkfloats. And until the early 2000s, unless you did a wholesale run, the majority of them were electric. They were a whole lot quieter than the combustion engine of the day, which is why most built up areas used them. Didn't want to wake up the locals.

[@calicojacque]

hearing the typewriter brought the scent of them flooding back. The metal, the light oil to keep all the hammers moving well, the ink ribbon, the rubber of the carriage. Iconic.

[@brambleheart]

Canadian-American born in 2004 here. I recognize quite a few of these sounds! -I hear dial up at places like the dentist who still use it to this day! -I learned to use a rotary phone when I was 9 because my dad found an app that simulated one with sounds and everything. -I once used a pay phone with my mom when I was little because I was curious about them. -Heard VHS rewind. -Played around with typewriters in thrift stores.

[@Beautyonthebrain_]

A constant sound from my youth was the *click* of the needle on my moms 'poker' as she checked her blood sugar. Every day, multiple times a day. I rarely hear it anymore as my mom has a CGM* so she checks her sugar with her phone. *Continuous Glucose Monitor

[@sschmidtevalue]

Dial up modems go much further back than the 90's. I used them in high school in 1973 and they almost certainly go further back than that.

[@lovemesomeslippers]

I don’t think the go back that far. They certainly weren’t common.

[@briancase7068]

My favorite episode so far. Im 20 and still really appreciate this.Thank you Erin!

[@tomkrajewski3391]

something else the kids will never hear but is truly distinctive: tape hiss, if you can find your old Walkman in a drawer somewhere go back and listen to one of your 80s favorites and appreciate all the digital formats we have today.

[@thehun1234]

After I replaced my rotary phone with a push button one, I had to set it to rotary because my local exchange was an old one and could not handle touch tones. The first touch-tone phones could also simulate the rotary dial pulses. For several years we had the two systems in use simultaneously, and the first touch-tone exchanges could also handle rotary phones.

[@mattf9096]

I bet most young people nowadays don't know the sound of white noise when a channel would go off the air. And they also wouldn't remember channels playing the national anthem before they went off the air.

[@lonerChise]

So many sounds lost to the years! (and I'm a freakin 90s kid) the hiss of telly static when you turned on grandma's set and it needed a second to warm up, the different static hiss when u flipped to channel 3 and the VCR wasn't on yet, dot-matrix printer, a very specific ping of an AOL IM coming in (if u haven't changed all your sounds to custom WAVs) the slight hiss of an audio cassette playing, a very specific barely-there noise of camera film winding up when your thumb on full autopilot pulls that lil lever.....

[@Wulf169]

I thought of a few. While you covered the phone dialing, you didn't cover the ringing of a phone which is very different than most phones today. Another sound missing from a lot of homes is the standard ding-dong of a mechanical doorbell. Another typing machine is the sound manual cash register made. More missing sounds from Casino most no long drop coins, so while you can hear the bells and whistle of jackpot you don't have the steady undertone of coins droppings.

[@bender7565]

In the 70's my college girlfriend taught this young sailor a pay phone trick. You needed a phone bank where the receiver reached another phone. The operator would tell you what your LD call would cost, you held the receiver to an adjacent phone where you put your coins. The operator was just listening for the different tones of different coins dropping. There was nothing to indicate the coins were in a different phone. You did your call and hung up the helper phone at the very end and got all your coinage back. Big cities were given the small area codes so all those people didn't have too wait so long for the dial to return. I tried a 3 1/2" AOL disk 1 time and the log in time was long and it was wicked $$. I bought my 1st puter, IBM 8088, in 84, you don't have to be 70 to know this stuff.

[@peggyjones3282]

How about the dreaded sound of a tape being eaten? You'd try to stop it before the damage was too bad. Also, the dot matrix printers.

[@carolynlewert-hagan4036]

And grab a pencil or ball point pen to try to get the tape back in...if it survived. :-)

[@ronaldmccomb8301]

All the sounds associated with cassette tapes.

[@justayoutuber1906]

Those are now back in fashion.

[@tragictrain404]

The sound of a tape cassette sliding into a tape player

[@midnightodellewest1999]

As well as the subtle sound of the needle hitting the vinyl on your favorite album

[@NyAppyMiku22]

the sound of turning on a CRT television and the sound of turning on your nintendo/sega/gameboy~

[@FishBola1991]

Yeah, that sort of Thunk-Hmm-and-crackle noise.

[@livinginvancouverbc2247]

Here's a trick my friend's and I learned about rotary phones. If you check into a cheap hotel, or of you're faced with a rotary phone that has a lock on the rotor, or the rotor is broken, you could tap the phone number on the hang-up buttons and it'll work The rotor would make 'clicks' over the phone line.Tapping the hang-up buttons made the same click. But it only worked when the system was touch-tone based. So of you travel to the past remember this tip!

[@jacforswear18]

I live in Canada, so we didn't have AOL, but MSN. I just had to look up a video of all the MSN noises. The nudge sound was visceral. Right back to being 13. Haha. I was very much an emo, pop punk, and scene loving kid, so Fall Out Boy, Death Cab, and Jack's Mannequin all frequented my status messages.

[@lindsaynic]

I'd probably have used something like "yOu WeRe ThE lAsT gOoD tHiNg AbOuT tHiS pArT oF tOwN" with bright colored fonts.

[@D-S-9]

It’s worth noting that your computer wasn’t just modulating the outgoing signal, it was also demodulating the incoming signal. The modulating demodulator is how we got to Modem.

[@jamiesuejeffery]

When I first got my amateur radio ticket (i.e., FCC issued radio license), I had to learn Morse Code. 30 years, 2 kids, a career later, I am relearning the very first digital communication that ever existed. This time for fun. Morse Code is simple. It is binary. a 1, 0, or null.

[@JeremyEllwood]

That "rewind" sound gives me PTSD - that's the sound you get when the cassette player eats your tape.

[@matt010288]

Thanks for that. Very nostalgic.

[@CNC-Time-Lapse]

Windows 95 startup sound. Dot matrix printers Sound of a tube television as it warmed up or as it was turned off (static electricity)

[@JiveDadson]

Ca. 1971, we used to play music on the IBM line printer. It was the size of a big washing machine, and loud.

[@MichaelSeanWright]

So wholesome and good. Agree with the reduction of kindness post VHS😂.

[@monkey93xf]

The sound of VHS rewinding (to me) is the super rewind, where it whirs for half a second and ramps up for like 2 seconds into a much higher pitch whir.

[@hernanhernandez6567]

How can you forget the sound of the ice cream truck driving by! I swear those aren't around anymore

[@koppadasao]

ATDP vs ATDT... I've had to use the ATDP-command to connect to internet several times, as in the mid 1990s there were still POTS-centrals in Norway that wouldn't accept dial tone dialing

[@julesstephenson8935]

There is actually a high percentage that blind kids have heard the typewriter noises. The Perkins brailler makes all the same sounds, aside from the actual typing, being a bit louder, because the mechanism at the TypePad has to punch holes into the paper to raise up the real dots. Well, not holes, per se, Morceau indentations. Also, I’ve been asking for years; but I would still love it if you guys made a misconceptions about blindness video.

[@emilyplunkett6034]

🎵 You call me up from a payphone/I say hang tight, I can drive you home/I pull on up and in a southern accent/I offered you my dad's leather jacket🎵

[@emilyplunkett6034]

Who the fuck uses a payphone?

[@hiccuphufflepuff176]

When I was little I accidentally called 911 on a rotary phone because I thought the lack of a dial tone meant it wasn't hooked up to anything, so I started playing with it. I dialed the 3 numbers and heard a man's voice say something like "Hello." Must be the fastest I've ever hung up a phone in my life.

[@donna30044]

Factory whistles. In many factory towns throughout the South (and possibly other areas), the local mill or factory would blow a steam whistle at various times of the day for various alerts (wakeup, lunch, etc.) The whistle could be heard miles away, and you could (usually) set your clocks and watches by it. I haven't heard one in decades.

[@justayoutuber1906]

Yabba Dabba doooooooo!

[@cgrable8342]

Old modem sounds..."RTS', (Request to send), "CTS", (Clear to send)..then "RD & SD"..(receive data & send data)....and a few others. Miss those blinking little lights and variable pitch static :) Oh Yeah, another sound I have found out that the younger set is sometimes not aware of is the good old fashioned telephone "Busy Signal". With answering machines, voice mail, call forwarding, voice-to-text...etc. They have never enjoyed the fact that sometimes people are busy and they will just have to wait for their turn to speak to them : - ) I for one really miss the busy signal...if you were on a call (in the good old days), you never knew if someone was trying to call while you are the phone. ( because they heard busy signal and not you) You had one conversation at time without without Aunt Bertha beeping in because her Wiener-Dog was puking on her shag carpet. HA!

[@curiousuranus810]

Ha ha ha. I remember rotary phones but not the rattle of a child dying from TB, or the sound of a horses leg breaking on a railway line - oh how we've moved forward.

[@mwmnmwm]

TV with tubes turning on. And the smells of it as it warms up.

[@crashk6]

"a medium that was already available in homes in the 1990s telephone wires" > Image of outdoor overhead primary (HV) and secondary (LV) mains power cables. Well that was unfortunate.

[@NyAppyMiku22]

oh the sound of those light projectors in school! idk if they still use those things tho lol i always felt so cool when i got to write on them in class even if i didnt know the answer xD

[@erinrising2799]

we had a rotary phone, I remember whenever there were radio contests if they wanted anything lower than the 50th caller, we weren't gonna win

[@lear1980]

I've always found it fascinating that projecting a movie is basically the opposite of producing it. It goes from light passing through a shutter and onto the film to passing light from the film through a shutter onto the screen.

[@matthewdrummond1340]

I saw Dashboard Confessional in a smaller venue about 5 years ago. They're pretty awesome

[@gordonronco]

I found Taking Back Sunday from my friend's AIM icon, not even their away message: The truth is you could slit my throat And with my one last gasping breath I'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt

[@MRxMADHATTER]

AOL Hell. Something I don't miss.

[@RwingDsquad]

You know how people get their house/yard toilet papered. I got aol CD’d. a couple hundred of them. It took forever to pick them all up.

[@tetepeb]

Putting in/Ejecting a VHS-tape and also rewinding it when you where done watching it.

[@lp-xl9ld]

I still refer to what you called the dial-up modem sound effect as " the mating call of the fax machine"

[@lifey]

That type writer at the end. 🥰🥰 so good.

[@mayasu4277]

My modem had a mute button…. And our instant messenger was icq. The o-oh sound makes me super nostalgic.

[@Sindroms23235]

1. Modems Young people these days will associate this sound with humorous videos where it is still used (usually along with the youtube buffering icon) to indicate a lack of coherent thought or confusion, or slow mental process.

[@CCSMrChen]

Kids will think the typewriter is a musical instrument bc that funny concert piece. Tikitikitikitikitak ding zwip!

[@crybebebunny]

The noise associated with certain toys.

[@dubya13207]

As soon as I saw the title card, the sound “EEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWA” popped into my head. Dial-up modem, of course

[@midnightodellewest1999]

Wow, I knew modem was short for modulater-demodulator, but that meant nothing to me. Now I actually get it.

[@robumf]

60 Hz hum from the radio coming from unknown but very local electrical source.

[@ReikaSensei]

I don't think it's from all VCRs, but the rewind sound is probably from when you rewind while the tape is playing and the VCR is sending signal to the TV because it sounds like the actual video's soundtrack/audio playing rapidly and/or backward. The VCRs I had growing up I don't think did that. I think manufacturers got it to not export audio when rewinding or fastforwarding during play, but yeah that's probably where that's from. In film it's used that way because the actual film plus soundtrack is being rewound emulating the case for when it'd come up. The rewind sound you said you remember is literally just the mechanical part when the tape is stopped and/or the TV is off so of course you'd never hear it. It was usually considered bad for the life of the tape to rewind/fast forward during play too because it'd damage it over time.

[@CarlyMonster]

How about those ungodly Alarm Clock sounds?!

[@wmbeam211]

Our 1st phone didn't even have a dial

[@MagdaleneDivine]

Y'ALL I TOOK TYPING CLASS IN 7TH GRADE AT EVERRET MIDDLE SCHOOL IN S. F! I CANT BELIEVE IM OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE TAKEN A TYPING CLASS. I HAD NEVER REALIZED HOW WEIRD THAT WAS!

[@bendadestroyer]

*Wow, that aim login door is so nostalgic.*

[@Kyrrial]

So I don't know why I was special, but I never had to deal with getting kicked off the internet when someone picked up the phone during the dial-up era. Picking up the phone, you'd just hear the same communication noises that you'd hear during the handshake phase of the connection being blasted into your ear. It certainly wasn't a feature of the modem, as this was the case with the multitude of modems we had, so I dunno why I was so special in that regard.

[@KiloDeltaOneSierra]

What's funny is the phone app still has the letters on keys.

[@puirYorick]

I own two electric typewriters if anyone desperately needs one. One is an IBM model, and the other may be an Olivetti or a Brother. It's been over a decade since I placed them into storage.

[@Tetratronic]

"I'm proud of you."

[@robinpetty7240]

HOW ABOUT THE DIAL TONE SOUND WHEN YOU PICK UP THE PHONE RECEIVER? OR THE SOUND YOU GET WHEN A NUMBER YOU HAVE CALLED HAS BEEN CHANGED DISCONNECTED OR NO LONGER IN SERVICE LAST BUT NOT LEAST THE BUSY SIGNAL

[@rs86]

My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me

[@route2070]

I don't remember phone calls kicking you off the internet. Instead I remember a phone call would hear a noise similar to dial up signal, if someone was on the internet. Was that ever the case or do I remember it wrong?

[@gl15col]

I remember it disconnecting the internet.

[@Mithrandir39]

If someone picked up another phone and realized fast enough, then put it right back down a lot of the time it would not disconnect. On the other hand if they didn't it would almost always disconnect.

[@starlessstephtx]

It would disconnect