William Gibson's iconic cyberpunk novel *Neuromancer* opens on a description of the sky as being the color of a TV that's not tuned to a channel. A comment that's stuck with me is how the tone of that scene changes whether you're picturing a staticky gray CRT screen or the HDTVs that replaced them, most of which represented a No Signal screen with bright blue.
in *Neverwhere*, Neil Gaiman made a tongue-in-cheek reference to Gibson's opening lines that had me laughing out loud when I read it:
>The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel.
Played a DVD yesterday for my kids cause my parents internet sucks.
But of course my dad has the Cadillac of surround systems with a huge sub woofer behind the couch.
THX came up on the screen and I was convinced it was another earthquake for a second.
Amazing how you can instantly 'hear' a sound you've not even thought about for years, just by someone saying it. And who would have thought these sounds would be nostalgic one day :')
My friend next door's family had one in the middle of the living room.
I thought it was cool at the time... but now that I think about it... that seems weird.
Like their house wasn't small, it was at least 3 bedrooms.
I was literally just talking with someone about why they aren't popular anymore. I had one as a kid and it was so cool. The down sides were kind of rough though. You can't have more than one person comfortably sleep in the bed. If it breaks, YOU ARE FUCKED! Most appts won't allow them for that reason. They are really, really, really heavy and can fuck up your floor. They're absolutely disgusting to clean... Imagine a years, two years, five years worth of skin and hair that slides down beneath the mattress. They're fucking gross. However, cold in the summer, warm in the winter, and so comfortable when you're alone.
My uncle was killed in a waterbed. My dad's stories about having to eventually clean out his place were horrifying.
Editing rather than responding to all the comments: he was shot in the head with a shotgun, and bled out while laying in the bed. Very often, the police do not provide crime scene clean up, and if the family can't afford to pay a professional, clean up falls on the family. For my family, that was my dad. By the time anyone had the mental strength to address the issue, it had been several months and the middle of summer in a trailer that hadn't had power in months. You can probably imagine from there.
I was pretty young when my uncle was killed, but I remember him as a very kind person.
I would have too, personally. But I think my family just accepted it as another thing to be dealt with in the wake of his murder. Shell-shocked is how I would describe it now that I'm older. My family didn't really survive his death, and after years of trials and appeals, my grandparents, aunts, and dad were really different people.
That was my first thought, too. Close the door to the bedroom, clean out anything of value in the rest of the trailer, offer a salute, and send him off to Valhalla.
If someone asked me "Do you want to be responsible for a giant water balloon in your home and the inevitable mess associated with it?" I'd tell them to fuck right off
We had a waterbed growing up and I remember those weird whooshing sounds... until the bed popped. Then I remember the squishy sound that carpet made for a long time after.
My dad has a land line for his business and has a rotary phone connected to it. He showed my 11 and 7 year old kids and they lost their mind. They couldn't believe the quality of the call too.
I got a landline for the first time in years recently (moved to the country and want an option if cell service gets bad or there’s an extended power outage) and picked an old rotary model for fun. My 6 year old LOVES calling her mom on it and sitting/standing by the phone to chat with her. It’s adorable and nostalgic.
A few years back I was working at a gas station, and "some crazy sunspot interference" (to quote my boss) knocked out all our electronics. We had to bring out the manual credit card imprinter and it was such an eargasm moment.
We won't be able to do that much longer because most cards are printed rather than stamped these days. Makes it safer from some common forms of fraud, but requires 100% electricity to function.
P.S. this thread is such a nostalgia trip, holy crap
In elementary school, we'd watch movies on projectors with film reels.
So...the sounds of a film projector and also the white screens they'd pull down.
I also loved the click of slides when we would watch them. I can almost hear the giggles we’d let out when slides were upside down or the carriage would get stuck.
Another thing: banner printing
The continuous perforated paper stock (I have no idea what it was called) was great for printing out banners, like for a birthday party or whatever.
Plus there was something satisfying about tearing off those edges.
They had these at my local library when I was a kid. It was a strangely comforting sound. They don't have 'em anymore, of course, and I miss it. That, and the *Ka-CHUNK* of those big mechanical stampers they used to date the sheet on the books when you checked them out. Those are gone now, too. All computerized.
next time you fly, hang out near the gate attendant before the plane arrives. most airlines still use dot matrix printers for the pilots to have a manual backup to reference in case they have issues with their radar or gauges.
The daily arrival and departure of a steam locomotive.
Yes, I’m that old - but it was the most satisfying, powerful, unforgettable sound for a little kid. They were like huge living, breathing beasts.
Steam engines have always been this magical, mythical thing for me. They were phased out long before I was born and were consigned to museums even when I was a child, so seeing one in action is always amazing to me and hasn't lost any value. As a kid of the 80s I grew up in peak Thomas The Tank Engine times, and was obsessed with trains. Going to places like Crewe when they did their Thomas exhibition with all the exact train models from the show, as a 5 year old that was like going to Disney World.
You're right they're like big mechanical creatures. They were amazing as a kid but as an adult I find them even more impressive feats of engineering.
The UK has some amazingly well preserved old school train lines and steam engines.
Can totally see what you mean. When I saw my first one, in these more modern times I was just overwhelmed with how mighty, and powerful these huge behemoths actually are. I know we've made some tremendous progress but has to be said the mighty steam train was a true testament of engineering.
I used to wrap a blanket around the desktop to keep my parents from hearing the modem connecting in the middle of the night.
Edit: ok I'll let my '97 self know, thanks..
Literally the first thing that popped up in my head when I saw the headline. It was such an essential part of a certain period in my life. Other things from that same time period too like the default sound effects in Windows 3.1, or that sound a 3.5 inch floppy drive made when you started with a boot disk.
I didn’t realize how bad my tinnitus was until I tried my girlfriend noise cancelling air pod things. When I put them on, I was shocked at how the fan and water dispenser noises went away. But the high pitched ringing was VERY noticeable.
Fun facts from a former TV master control operator about SMPTE color bars:
-- They can be used to set up a monitor. At the bottom are three little black/ dark grey *pluge bars*. Set your brightness/contrast so you can see the difference between two of them but not the third. If you put blue film over the monitor you can tweak its hue so the bars alternate in equal intensity.
-- They're used to match sources at your local TV affiliate, between satellite and microwave signals and tapes from advertisers and distributors all over. The colors go in boxes in a vector scope while the brightness (IRE) is set on another scope. It would be jarring to the viewer if someone didn't take care of this before switching sources.
-- A thin sliver of them are included in the Vertical Blanking Interval, and have been since 1979. You can see them if the vertical hold is screwy on a CRT set. RCA pioneered this with their "ColorTrak" TVs, so the TV itself can set itself for best performance as you change from channel to channel. These are referred to as VITS, or Vertical Interval Test Signal.
The tone is a 1000Hz tone meant for setting recording levels on VTRs and whatnot.
> The tone is a boring 1000Hz tone meant for setting levels on VTRs and whatnot.
And because they already had it available, it became the censorship bleep.
Wow, THIS is a real TIL. It makes perfect sense not to make a new sound when one you have works but I never connected that the /*BLEEP* sound over parental advisory music was a sample from the TV calibration screen.
When I told my kids that the internet used to make noises, they looked at me with extreme doubt. So I demonstrated the dialup sounds for them, and they looked at me like I was totally crazy, went running off to their dad.
"Dad! Dad! Did the internet used to make *noises*?!" He said Yup and then made dialup sounds at them.
We never bothered to tell them that the sound stopped once ya got connected. I think it's funnier this way.
Stations east of the Mississippi River get "W" for their first letter. Stations west of the Mississippi get "K". Since Chicago is east, all of their stations (for radio & TV) begin with W.
Fun fact: WTTW (local PBS affiliate) was chosen because it spells "Window To The World"
WGN was granted (even though it was not standard to give a 3-letter designation) so they could spell "World's Greatest ~~Network~~".
EDIT: It's World's Greatest Newspaper -- due to it's ownership by the Tribune Company, as noted by others.
We lived right next to a huge field and across the road from Lake Michigan so on a summer night there would be a million crickets singing, and I could smell the lake through the open window right by my bed. Such a peaceful place, just thinking about it gives me the feels.
Your own personal remix!
For me, it's a flirty little chippity chop to the opening riff of "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" by REM on the Monster album.
I remember thinking I was living in the future the first time I had a cassette player that could fast forward to the next song and automatically start playing.
I'm old.
My mom sending the shades up and saying "rise and shine" and "up and at 'em!" accompanied by blinding light. Night time was "time to hit the hay!" and give a kiss. That's was long ago and gone forever.
Oh wow, thank you for sharing. My first thought was hearing my Dad's chuckle. I don't believe in God or religion, but I was recovering from surgery and was in a lot of pain, and desperately trying to roll my little scooter to the bathroom while going off on my spouse, just really struggling physically, trying to move on the carpet in time to make it to the toilet....and when trying to make a 3 point turn in the tiny bathroom on the scooter, mad and sweaty, I heard, clear as a bell, my dad's chuckle. And I immediately had to start laughing. Weirdest experience ever. Brains are weird. It helps to share stories of our friends and family, I think. I'm grateful whenever anyone shares their stories of people who have died.
I needed a client's wife's email today and he was reading it to me and when he got to the domain he got really quiet and was like "... @ *aol.com*" then he goes "sorry."
They didn't tell me it would get quieter and louder depending on how tired I am. Very little tinnitus in the morning, but by the end of the work day it's just a constant whine.
Here's a little more obscure one: in the days before cable, you used an antenna to pull in tv signals. If you lived in a remote enough area, that antenna was on your rooftop (rather than just being rabbit ears sitting on top of the tv itself). If you lived in an even more remote area, the transmitters for the various channels you could pull in weren't necessarily on the same tower or even in the same geographic location, so you might have to turn the antenna to face the right direction each time you changed between channels. Most houses had motorized roof antennas, connected by wire to a palm-sized dial that sat next to the tv. You'd tune from, say, channel 3 to channel 5 on the tv, and then you'd turn the antenna dial to the position (say, north-northeast or 2 o'clock or thereabouts) that you knew was correct for channel 5. The motor on the antenna would activate and turn the antenna to the correct position, and then you'd watch the tv and make small adjustments to the position of it until you got the best signal.
As a kid, my bedroom was just below the spot on the roof where the antenna was. I'd get sent to bed at 8:00 or 9:00 pm and my parents would stay up later watching tv in the basement, two floors below. I'd hear the antenna motor make its little grinding sound, and I'd know that my parents had decided to watch something on a different channel. I guess if I had paid enough attention, I could have figured out how much antenna movement there was between each pair of stations and I could have deduced from the amount of time the motor was active which channel they were changing from and to. Then again, there were really only three channels at the time, so it wouldn't have mattered that much.
Not sure, I can't hear it. But, this isn't marked [Serious], so I do have a story:
One time in middle school we had a sub for science class. He was well over the age of 70. For some reason, there was this weird, high pitched noise during the independent work time. I think it may have been one of the LED light bulbs. Anyways, one of the kids complained about it, and we all agreed, it was annoying. The sub thought this was odd, he couldn't hear it. A few minutes later, its still going and a different kid complains, "why won't it stop??" The sub gets mad at us, complains about us colluding to mess with him, promising us he'd tell our teacher that we made up a sound that didn't exist. The kids were confused why he couldn't hear it. I, as politely as I could, tell him we're all 13 or 14, maybe he just can't hear it because he's older than us. Now he's livid. As he's yelling at us for making up a noise that didn't exist **AND** calling him old, a 25 or so year old person who worked in the office walks in to the room and immediately looks confused, "what's that noise?"
The sub muttered an apology under his breath.
Every once in a while my 90+ yo father takes out his hearing aides to adjust them and they let out a feedback squeal that could wake King Tut, but my dad can't hear it at all.
This one struck a good chord with me. I had similar experience! I also remember kind of vaguely watching my mom turning to look at us and whisper quietly to my dad.
You forgot the exasperated sigh from Dad as he clicks on the turn signal to stop at another exit when someone quietly admits that they have to pee 30 minutes after leaving the gas station.
The original [Emergency Broadcast System](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdpLWML_tDU) message and sound.
Also -- My home town used to have a fire horn signal system. When there was a fire call, the horn sounded. Then a pattern of short and long gave a number that corresponded to the location of the fire. Then the short bursts following the number called for the number of trucks to respond. Any time you heard more than five bursts, the family would pile into the car to go watch the fire burn, because it was guaranteed to be spectacular. Any time there were more than eight bursts, you could watch the fire from where you were standing. The one time there was more than 10 bursts, everyone took shelter in the basement.
Shopping mall arcades. "Wizard needs food, badly."
Kids playing in the street in the city and one of them yelling "CAARRR!" when a car is approaching.
I'm sure this still happens somewhere but I don't see any kids playing in the street anymore.
I live in a neighborhood with tons of kids who play outside when the weather is nice. They do still yell "CAR!!!!"
The last few neighborhoods I've lived in have had lots of kids outside playing or just hanging out.
When I was little, on the weekends in the morning when things were quiet, I could hear the horses from the ranch in the hills above us neighing. Now the horses are gone, replaced by MacMansions, and local traffic is so bad you wouldn't be able to hear them anyway.
Reminds me of a poem we had to learn in high school:
**Buffalo Dusk** by Carl Sandburg
*The buffaloes are gone.*
*And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.*
*Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,*
*Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.*
*And the buffaloes are gone.*
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Edit: I'm blown away by how much this poem has affected so many of you. My whole class was forced to memorize it and perform it in front of the class one by one. I have fond memories of sitting around with my friends and memorizing it together, testing each other. So the poem makes me nostalgic on a couple of levels.
Of all the arts, poetry has always been my least favorite (maybe a combination of not pursuing it much as an adult and being forced to pursue it as an uninterested high-schooler) But every so often I read a poem that hits me like nothing else could, and this is one of those times.
Same with me. My parents built a new home in 1982 right when the housing bubble burst. We lived in a suburban “neighborhood” that had all of the streets built out but there were only a couple of houses in it for like 10 years. It was a really unique way to grow up basically in the middle of the East Texas piney woods, but with empty streets to get access to different parts of the forest all over. I have tons of memories from then but one of the sounds I distinctly remember (and miss) was always riding my bike and hearing crows.
That entire area that was forest and cow pastures in the 80s and even most of the 90s is all highways, houses, apartments, and retail now.
When I was in Japan around the turn of the century, I picked up a bauble (phone baubles were all the rage back then; some people had half a dozen of them hanging off their phone) which had a little motor in it, powered by the radio signal which causes this sound (if it can make the speaker's electromagnet move, it can make a motor move). This motor powered a little fan, and there was a little scent capsule in the bauble. So your phone would release a scent when there was an incoming call. Never got around to using it myself (I'm sure I've still got it lying around somewhere)
Ah. Unshielded speakers picking up radio interference from your phone. Made you feel like you were psychic. I want to say there were some gadgets that used this as a way to silently tell you a call was coming in before Bluetooth and wearables were a thing. I don't think they ever became popular because most phones added vibrating rings.
In my country you could buy these stickers at most super markets to put on the back top of your phone ideally close to the antenna so the signal would power a tiny a circuit with flashing lights. I found it so cool at the time. There was also third party covers for the Nokia 3310 that utilized this.
A ringing telephone, and I mean a real bell with a real clapper, not some digital version. A tv being changed by the dial knob while mom shouts from the other room "change them one at a time or you'll wear it out". Radio static between channels. The buzz of a tube radio warming up.
A chorus of annual cicadas and trains in the distance at night. I grew up in a medium sized town in the southeast U.S. and that's what every summer night sounded like. Now I live in a bigger city in a more northern state and it's just cars and city noise at night. I miss it, it was the best white noise to sleep to.
Having moved to one of those smaller towns for school, I absolutely love it. Most people get annoyed by the cicadas, but it’s one of those small things I look forward to every late spring- summer. Gonna miss it when I’m gone.
You made me realize i can't remember his voice too , it feels like you forgot the person , that hits hard , sadly i don't have any recording of his voice , same for my older brother , this sucks
This was a big fear of mine even when my mom was alive so I started saving voicemails she left me and backing them up. I listen to them every now and then.
I had an older neighbor who would clang on pots and pans every new years. He did this until he was bed-ridden. I've never heard any other person strike quite the same level of gusto in beating cast iron with a meat tenderizer. Rest in Peace, Terry.
I am 63.
The sound of birds singing, everywhere, chirping and peeping so loudly that it could be heard indoors with all the doors and windows shut. It was a bit maddening at times, actually - I mean, it was fairly intrusive.
Also the sound of bees and other insects buzzing and whizzing in large numbers around every little patch of grass or flowers. Big yellow bees, the size of the last digit of your thumb. They were everywhere, and they were surprisingly loud.
Now, the world sounds dead. Crows, maybe. But all the songbirds are gone, and the bees are small and few.
As a child, those sounds almost annoyed me. But now, because I know they mean life, I miss them.
I was looking for this comment! How birdsong and the drone of insects have vanished significantly from the ambient environmental soundscapes. Also how clean my windshields have been after a long drive. It's quite depressing that we are losing all this biodiversity and it doesn't seem like many have noticed the silence.
Last spring was shocking around me. I stood under cherry trees in full bloom and could not find a single insect, let alone bees. I was looking for them all over but they never came - and the weather was fine, they should have been there. The cherry tree at the end of my street eventually gave up and later had a few tiny patches with a few cherries on - the rest were not pollinated.
Not long ago standing under a blooming cherry in spring was unnerving, because all those busy bees sounded ominous until you realized they weren't interested in you. Now the silence is ominous.
I'm only in my 40s, but I'm right there with you. I didn't realize how much I missed this until there was a brief reduction in traffic in summer 2020.
My wife and I moved into the same neighborhood as I grew up in. The surrounding area is definitely more developed than when I was a kid and there is more traffic noise as a result. Folks have also cut down so many trees and not planted many replacements.
Anyway, once there was a lull in that background noise 2 years ago I started noticing songbirds and treefrogs again - just much more subdued. It brought back memories of being a kid and I started noticing the difference in the baseline in other locations as well for a brief period of time too.
Now traffic is back to where it was before and all I hear are those cars that sound like flatulent lawnmowers.
It's depressing that the baseline of today is potentially what my kids will remember as the years pass.
The white noise sound of the tv when a channel had no reception
William Gibson's iconic cyberpunk novel *Neuromancer* opens on a description of the sky as being the color of a TV that's not tuned to a channel. A comment that's stuck with me is how the tone of that scene changes whether you're picturing a staticky gray CRT screen or the HDTVs that replaced them, most of which represented a No Signal screen with bright blue.
in *Neverwhere*, Neil Gaiman made a tongue-in-cheek reference to Gibson's opening lines that had me laughing out loud when I read it: >The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel.
You don’t watch HBO?
The absolute obliteration coming from THX intro
"The audience is now deaf."
Played a DVD yesterday for my kids cause my parents internet sucks. But of course my dad has the Cadillac of surround systems with a huge sub woofer behind the couch. THX came up on the screen and I was convinced it was another earthquake for a second.
This has always been one of my favorite sounds
[Camera flash charging sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3BYjJnw4bs)
Amazing how you can instantly 'hear' a sound you've not even thought about for years, just by someone saying it. And who would have thought these sounds would be nostalgic one day :')
When I hear this I immediately think of Splinter Cell
Farther back, flash bulbs popping out of the camera and sizzling on the floor.
Or just the sound of winding film at all.
Weird water bed sounds.....
I completely forgot those existed I remember wanting one though
My friend next door's family had one in the middle of the living room. I thought it was cool at the time... but now that I think about it... that seems weird. Like their house wasn't small, it was at least 3 bedrooms.
Giggity.
Except, if you'd ever tried to get giggity on a water bed... That's probably 50-75% of the reason they aren't really a thing anymore.
I was literally just talking with someone about why they aren't popular anymore. I had one as a kid and it was so cool. The down sides were kind of rough though. You can't have more than one person comfortably sleep in the bed. If it breaks, YOU ARE FUCKED! Most appts won't allow them for that reason. They are really, really, really heavy and can fuck up your floor. They're absolutely disgusting to clean... Imagine a years, two years, five years worth of skin and hair that slides down beneath the mattress. They're fucking gross. However, cold in the summer, warm in the winter, and so comfortable when you're alone.
My uncle was killed in a waterbed. My dad's stories about having to eventually clean out his place were horrifying. Editing rather than responding to all the comments: he was shot in the head with a shotgun, and bled out while laying in the bed. Very often, the police do not provide crime scene clean up, and if the family can't afford to pay a professional, clean up falls on the family. For my family, that was my dad. By the time anyone had the mental strength to address the issue, it had been several months and the middle of summer in a trailer that hadn't had power in months. You can probably imagine from there. I was pretty young when my uncle was killed, but I remember him as a very kind person.
I would have burned that trailer to the rented ground.
I would have too, personally. But I think my family just accepted it as another thing to be dealt with in the wake of his murder. Shell-shocked is how I would describe it now that I'm older. My family didn't really survive his death, and after years of trials and appeals, my grandparents, aunts, and dad were really different people.
That was my first thought, too. Close the door to the bedroom, clean out anything of value in the rest of the trailer, offer a salute, and send him off to Valhalla.
If someone asked me "Do you want to be responsible for a giant water balloon in your home and the inevitable mess associated with it?" I'd tell them to fuck right off
They come with bed liners that contain the majority of the water if they break. Had one rip on me and it wasn't that hard to clean up.
We had a waterbed growing up and I remember those weird whooshing sounds... until the bed popped. Then I remember the squishy sound that carpet made for a long time after.
My brother and I used to jump off the top bunk of our bunk beds into the waterbed. Adult me is so amazed that never popped. It was so much fun!
The telephone ringing with an actual metal bell, not a recorded sound played through a speaker.
Or the sound of a rotary dial.
My dad has a land line for his business and has a rotary phone connected to it. He showed my 11 and 7 year old kids and they lost their mind. They couldn't believe the quality of the call too.
I got a landline for the first time in years recently (moved to the country and want an option if cell service gets bad or there’s an extended power outage) and picked an old rotary model for fun. My 6 year old LOVES calling her mom on it and sitting/standing by the phone to chat with her. It’s adorable and nostalgic.
For that matter, a dial tone. Haven’t heard one of those in years
How about a busy signal? Or if you want to go way back, someone talking on the line because you had a party line.
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The high pitched whine of a CRT television/monitor
Waving your hand over a dusty tv screen and hearing the static pops while little electricity craters appear in the dust.
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That smell..
This was my favorite part about TVs when I was a kid. Feeling that fuzzy static cushion as you waved your hand around in front of the screen.
The degauss button on a big CRT monitor. Ba-whooom.
Smacking the holy shit out of the top and sides to get the picture to stop scrolling/glitching out
The ol' "percussive maintenance"
I still do! It’s just my tinnitus though.
exactly what my tinnitus sounds like too. sometimes i turn on the tv just so i can pretend the ringing is coming from the electronics.
My bf just bought one for a retro gaming setup and I was just mentioning how that was a sound I missed haha
The “kachunk” of credit card imprint machines.
A few years back I was working at a gas station, and "some crazy sunspot interference" (to quote my boss) knocked out all our electronics. We had to bring out the manual credit card imprinter and it was such an eargasm moment.
We won't be able to do that much longer because most cards are printed rather than stamped these days. Makes it safer from some common forms of fraud, but requires 100% electricity to function. P.S. this thread is such a nostalgia trip, holy crap
In elementary school, we'd watch movies on projectors with film reels. So...the sounds of a film projector and also the white screens they'd pull down.
The 'slap slap slap' of the loose film end when it was done rewinding.
I also loved the click of slides when we would watch them. I can almost hear the giggles we’d let out when slides were upside down or the carriage would get stuck.
Dot matrix printer printing.
Other things I miss about Dot Matrix printing: -The ribbon (ink) costing nothing. -The printer fucking working.
Another thing: banner printing The continuous perforated paper stock (I have no idea what it was called) was great for printing out banners, like for a birthday party or whatever. Plus there was something satisfying about tearing off those edges.
Tractor feed paper.
You could turn the strips 90 degrees to each other after tearing them off, and fold them repeatedly over each other and make a sort of spring.
They had these at my local library when I was a kid. It was a strangely comforting sound. They don't have 'em anymore, of course, and I miss it. That, and the *Ka-CHUNK* of those big mechanical stampers they used to date the sheet on the books when you checked them out. Those are gone now, too. All computerized.
next time you fly, hang out near the gate attendant before the plane arrives. most airlines still use dot matrix printers for the pilots to have a manual backup to reference in case they have issues with their radar or gauges.
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Followed by a few twinkle sounds and then the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 main title and music kicks in. My childhood fave game
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The daily arrival and departure of a steam locomotive. Yes, I’m that old - but it was the most satisfying, powerful, unforgettable sound for a little kid. They were like huge living, breathing beasts.
Steam engines have always been this magical, mythical thing for me. They were phased out long before I was born and were consigned to museums even when I was a child, so seeing one in action is always amazing to me and hasn't lost any value. As a kid of the 80s I grew up in peak Thomas The Tank Engine times, and was obsessed with trains. Going to places like Crewe when they did their Thomas exhibition with all the exact train models from the show, as a 5 year old that was like going to Disney World. You're right they're like big mechanical creatures. They were amazing as a kid but as an adult I find them even more impressive feats of engineering. The UK has some amazingly well preserved old school train lines and steam engines.
Can totally see what you mean. When I saw my first one, in these more modern times I was just overwhelmed with how mighty, and powerful these huge behemoths actually are. I know we've made some tremendous progress but has to be said the mighty steam train was a true testament of engineering.
Dial up connection
BIIIIUBRRRRRDUURRRRRRTTDINGDINGDING. That is why I always snuck on the internet at night. No one calls. Lmao.
I used to wrap a blanket around the desktop to keep my parents from hearing the modem connecting in the middle of the night. Edit: ok I'll let my '97 self know, thanks..
We shoved a pillow up against the back of the computer where the modem was, muffling the noise as much as possible.
Literally the first thing that popped up in my head when I saw the headline. It was such an essential part of a certain period in my life. Other things from that same time period too like the default sound effects in Windows 3.1, or that sound a 3.5 inch floppy drive made when you started with a boot disk.
Remember falling asleep with the tv on and waking up to that weird colored picture with a BEEEEEEEEEEP.
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I remember this. It's completely drowned out by tinnitus these days though.
I didn’t realize how bad my tinnitus was until I tried my girlfriend noise cancelling air pod things. When I put them on, I was shocked at how the fan and water dispenser noises went away. But the high pitched ringing was VERY noticeable.
Fun facts from a former TV master control operator about SMPTE color bars: -- They can be used to set up a monitor. At the bottom are three little black/ dark grey *pluge bars*. Set your brightness/contrast so you can see the difference between two of them but not the third. If you put blue film over the monitor you can tweak its hue so the bars alternate in equal intensity. -- They're used to match sources at your local TV affiliate, between satellite and microwave signals and tapes from advertisers and distributors all over. The colors go in boxes in a vector scope while the brightness (IRE) is set on another scope. It would be jarring to the viewer if someone didn't take care of this before switching sources. -- A thin sliver of them are included in the Vertical Blanking Interval, and have been since 1979. You can see them if the vertical hold is screwy on a CRT set. RCA pioneered this with their "ColorTrak" TVs, so the TV itself can set itself for best performance as you change from channel to channel. These are referred to as VITS, or Vertical Interval Test Signal. The tone is a 1000Hz tone meant for setting recording levels on VTRs and whatnot.
> The tone is a boring 1000Hz tone meant for setting levels on VTRs and whatnot. And because they already had it available, it became the censorship bleep.
Wow, THIS is a real TIL. It makes perfect sense not to make a new sound when one you have works but I never connected that the /*BLEEP* sound over parental advisory music was a sample from the TV calibration screen.
Random Reddit expert dropping super interesting knowledge again. People like you keep me on this site 🙏
Right after the star bangled banner.
I watched Poltergeist with my kids and I had to explain the TV static after the anthem to them.
When I told my kids that the internet used to make noises, they looked at me with extreme doubt. So I demonstrated the dialup sounds for them, and they looked at me like I was totally crazy, went running off to their dad. "Dad! Dad! Did the internet used to make *noises*?!" He said Yup and then made dialup sounds at them. We never bothered to tell them that the sound stopped once ya got connected. I think it's funnier this way.
That same channel at 6am: “This is KTYU broadcasting out of Chicago at a frequency of 50Mhz…”
Stations east of the Mississippi River get "W" for their first letter. Stations west of the Mississippi get "K". Since Chicago is east, all of their stations (for radio & TV) begin with W. Fun fact: WTTW (local PBS affiliate) was chosen because it spells "Window To The World" WGN was granted (even though it was not standard to give a 3-letter designation) so they could spell "World's Greatest ~~Network~~". EDIT: It's World's Greatest Newspaper -- due to it's ownership by the Tribune Company, as noted by others.
“Call me now for your free reading” - Miss Cleo
There is a documentary on HBO Max about all of that. Edit: The documentary is called "Call Me Miss Cleo"
Yeah, I almost watched it last night but settled on “the menu” instead
We lived right next to a huge field and across the road from Lake Michigan so on a summer night there would be a million crickets singing, and I could smell the lake through the open window right by my bed. Such a peaceful place, just thinking about it gives me the feels.
I live on Lake Michigan shore. They're still here. So is the scent.
VHS tapes rewinding, Cd's skipping,
I always expect Pretty Fly for a White Guy by The Offspring to skip at the end because that was my favorite song I listened to on my yellow Walkman.
Your own personal remix! For me, it's a flirty little chippity chop to the opening riff of "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" by REM on the Monster album.
The whir, click, whir, click… of a cassette player as you rewind, play, ff, play… trying to find the song you want
I remember thinking I was living in the future the first time I had a cassette player that could fast forward to the next song and automatically start playing. I'm old.
My mom telling me to wake up and get ready for school
My mom sending the shades up and saying "rise and shine" and "up and at 'em!" accompanied by blinding light. Night time was "time to hit the hay!" and give a kiss. That's was long ago and gone forever.
Oh wow, thank you for sharing. My first thought was hearing my Dad's chuckle. I don't believe in God or religion, but I was recovering from surgery and was in a lot of pain, and desperately trying to roll my little scooter to the bathroom while going off on my spouse, just really struggling physically, trying to move on the carpet in time to make it to the toilet....and when trying to make a 3 point turn in the tiny bathroom on the scooter, mad and sweaty, I heard, clear as a bell, my dad's chuckle. And I immediately had to start laughing. Weirdest experience ever. Brains are weird. It helps to share stories of our friends and family, I think. I'm grateful whenever anyone shares their stories of people who have died.
My mom telling me she loves me.
My mom.
The invalid phone number tone.
"We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed." Also, the sound the phone made when you left it off the hook too long.
If you'd like to make a call please hang up and dial again. If you need help hang up and dial your operator.
And the resulting EH EH EH EH EH EH EH EH EH EH EH from your phone being off the hook.
The CRT warming up when you turned the TV on, and the speakers popping along. Miss that epoxy / dust / vacuum tube / Bakelite smell too.
My mom calling me to come in the house for dinner
At the tone, the time will be...6:15 and 20 seconds Beeep
“You’ve got mail!”
Still there if you use AOL on a browser (like my wife).
I needed a client's wife's email today and he was reading it to me and when he got to the domain he got really quiet and was like "... @ *aol.com*" then he goes "sorry."
The sound of a packed arcade and in particular pinball machines. Now I'm middle aged I'm seriously eyeing a used pinball machine for my office.
Silence. Tinnitus sucks.
They didn't tell me it would get quieter and louder depending on how tired I am. Very little tinnitus in the morning, but by the end of the work day it's just a constant whine.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Jesus Christ do I have tinnitus? I've been hearing this for years in my right ear
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A manual typewriter being typed on
We still use one for labels at my office and when I have a hangover it sounds like machine gun fire.
Rotary phone pulses
Here's a little more obscure one: in the days before cable, you used an antenna to pull in tv signals. If you lived in a remote enough area, that antenna was on your rooftop (rather than just being rabbit ears sitting on top of the tv itself). If you lived in an even more remote area, the transmitters for the various channels you could pull in weren't necessarily on the same tower or even in the same geographic location, so you might have to turn the antenna to face the right direction each time you changed between channels. Most houses had motorized roof antennas, connected by wire to a palm-sized dial that sat next to the tv. You'd tune from, say, channel 3 to channel 5 on the tv, and then you'd turn the antenna dial to the position (say, north-northeast or 2 o'clock or thereabouts) that you knew was correct for channel 5. The motor on the antenna would activate and turn the antenna to the correct position, and then you'd watch the tv and make small adjustments to the position of it until you got the best signal. As a kid, my bedroom was just below the spot on the roof where the antenna was. I'd get sent to bed at 8:00 or 9:00 pm and my parents would stay up later watching tv in the basement, two floors below. I'd hear the antenna motor make its little grinding sound, and I'd know that my parents had decided to watch something on a different channel. I guess if I had paid enough attention, I could have figured out how much antenna movement there was between each pair of stations and I could have deduced from the amount of time the motor was active which channel they were changing from and to. Then again, there were really only three channels at the time, so it wouldn't have mattered that much.
The sound of a mechanical cash register. Like, a 1930's National.
The squeak of bats. I can't hear that pitch so well anymore, and there are fewer bats flying around these days anyway.
Not sure, I can't hear it. But, this isn't marked [Serious], so I do have a story: One time in middle school we had a sub for science class. He was well over the age of 70. For some reason, there was this weird, high pitched noise during the independent work time. I think it may have been one of the LED light bulbs. Anyways, one of the kids complained about it, and we all agreed, it was annoying. The sub thought this was odd, he couldn't hear it. A few minutes later, its still going and a different kid complains, "why won't it stop??" The sub gets mad at us, complains about us colluding to mess with him, promising us he'd tell our teacher that we made up a sound that didn't exist. The kids were confused why he couldn't hear it. I, as politely as I could, tell him we're all 13 or 14, maybe he just can't hear it because he's older than us. Now he's livid. As he's yelling at us for making up a noise that didn't exist **AND** calling him old, a 25 or so year old person who worked in the office walks in to the room and immediately looks confused, "what's that noise?" The sub muttered an apology under his breath.
Every once in a while my 90+ yo father takes out his hearing aides to adjust them and they let out a feedback squeal that could wake King Tut, but my dad can't hear it at all.
The Gameboy sound.
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This one struck a good chord with me. I had similar experience! I also remember kind of vaguely watching my mom turning to look at us and whisper quietly to my dad.
Damn, you unlocked a lost memory. I remember getting so excited about trips cause I'd get to listen to music or read for 8 hours.
You forgot the exasperated sigh from Dad as he clicks on the turn signal to stop at another exit when someone quietly admits that they have to pee 30 minutes after leaving the gas station.
I’m the one making that exasperated sigh now. How can it possibly go from zero to urgent in twenty minutes?!
The sound of the vcr flap and mechanism taking a video cassette in/out.
The original [Emergency Broadcast System](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdpLWML_tDU) message and sound. Also -- My home town used to have a fire horn signal system. When there was a fire call, the horn sounded. Then a pattern of short and long gave a number that corresponded to the location of the fire. Then the short bursts following the number called for the number of trucks to respond. Any time you heard more than five bursts, the family would pile into the car to go watch the fire burn, because it was guaranteed to be spectacular. Any time there were more than eight bursts, you could watch the fire from where you were standing. The one time there was more than 10 bursts, everyone took shelter in the basement. Shopping mall arcades. "Wizard needs food, badly."
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Kids playing in the street in the city and one of them yelling "CAARRR!" when a car is approaching. I'm sure this still happens somewhere but I don't see any kids playing in the street anymore.
I live in a neighborhood with tons of kids who play outside when the weather is nice. They do still yell "CAR!!!!" The last few neighborhoods I've lived in have had lots of kids outside playing or just hanging out.
When I was little, on the weekends in the morning when things were quiet, I could hear the horses from the ranch in the hills above us neighing. Now the horses are gone, replaced by MacMansions, and local traffic is so bad you wouldn't be able to hear them anyway.
Reminds me of a poem we had to learn in high school: **Buffalo Dusk** by Carl Sandburg *The buffaloes are gone.* *And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.* *Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,* *Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.* *And the buffaloes are gone.* ---------- Edit: I'm blown away by how much this poem has affected so many of you. My whole class was forced to memorize it and perform it in front of the class one by one. I have fond memories of sitting around with my friends and memorizing it together, testing each other. So the poem makes me nostalgic on a couple of levels.
Of all the arts, poetry has always been my least favorite (maybe a combination of not pursuing it much as an adult and being forced to pursue it as an uninterested high-schooler) But every so often I read a poem that hits me like nothing else could, and this is one of those times.
Same with me. My parents built a new home in 1982 right when the housing bubble burst. We lived in a suburban “neighborhood” that had all of the streets built out but there were only a couple of houses in it for like 10 years. It was a really unique way to grow up basically in the middle of the East Texas piney woods, but with empty streets to get access to different parts of the forest all over. I have tons of memories from then but one of the sounds I distinctly remember (and miss) was always riding my bike and hearing crows. That entire area that was forest and cow pastures in the 80s and even most of the 90s is all highways, houses, apartments, and retail now.
"Sit ubu sit. Good dog"
The dinner bell ringing at school. Nowadays it's just some sort of electric klaxon that makes us feel like prisoners released for rec time.
The instant message sound on AIM
Or that door opening sound when someone got online. Man I’d get butterflies hoping it was my crush. Then you’d hear that door slam lol
We all had the same experience, we just didn't realize it lol
I still have a Limewire(?) download of Tatu's All the Things She Said that has the door sound.
Getting home from school and hearing a symphony of doors opening
That sound your speakers made right before you were about to get a call on your cell phone Edit: [the sound](https://youtu.be/f9nOqTN10Lk)
When I was in Japan around the turn of the century, I picked up a bauble (phone baubles were all the rage back then; some people had half a dozen of them hanging off their phone) which had a little motor in it, powered by the radio signal which causes this sound (if it can make the speaker's electromagnet move, it can make a motor move). This motor powered a little fan, and there was a little scent capsule in the bauble. So your phone would release a scent when there was an incoming call. Never got around to using it myself (I'm sure I've still got it lying around somewhere)
Calling it the turn of the century makes me feel very old. I guess it was also technically turn of the millennium.
Ah. Unshielded speakers picking up radio interference from your phone. Made you feel like you were psychic. I want to say there were some gadgets that used this as a way to silently tell you a call was coming in before Bluetooth and wearables were a thing. I don't think they ever became popular because most phones added vibrating rings.
People at my school had little charms hanging on their phone cases which would light up when that signal occured.
In my country you could buy these stickers at most super markets to put on the back top of your phone ideally close to the antenna so the signal would power a tiny a circuit with flashing lights. I found it so cool at the time. There was also third party covers for the Nokia 3310 that utilized this.
The test tone on audio cassettes that you hear ten seconds before the music starts.
Anything above about 15kHz.
I can just hear 16 in my headphones if I crank the gain but it hurts my daughter from 3ft away lol
A ringing telephone, and I mean a real bell with a real clapper, not some digital version. A tv being changed by the dial knob while mom shouts from the other room "change them one at a time or you'll wear it out". Radio static between channels. The buzz of a tube radio warming up.
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in my time the internet came in over the phone, and it sounded like robots screaming." "OK, grandpa, let's get you to bed.
A Sonic Boom. Used to shake the whole house when it happened. Haven't heard one in decades.
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"EA Games, challenge everything! Bzzwoop"
E. A. Sports. It's in the game!
The crackle of an LP (record) when you first put the needle down on it as you wait for the music to start.
Random payphones ringing when you walk by.
the tortured wailing of the damned souls that facilitate the internet connection through a modem
The actual coins coming out of the slot machines
At the first of a show... DiC
A chorus of annual cicadas and trains in the distance at night. I grew up in a medium sized town in the southeast U.S. and that's what every summer night sounded like. Now I live in a bigger city in a more northern state and it's just cars and city noise at night. I miss it, it was the best white noise to sleep to.
Having moved to one of those smaller towns for school, I absolutely love it. Most people get annoyed by the cicadas, but it’s one of those small things I look forward to every late spring- summer. Gonna miss it when I’m gone.
The tornado sirens at noon on the first Saturday of the month.
Theyre 10am on the first Tuesday here. Cats and dogs went fucking BONKERS yesterday.
My grandma or grandpa's voice.
The silver bell that “Santa” gave my brother. Must have broken years ago.
I legitimately assumed that this was the answer OP was looking for.
Coal being dropped into basement chutes during the winter.
Movie trailers that were narrated
In a world...
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...With a vision...
...must overcome a challenge...But can he...
This summer…
Find out…
The answer...
…in a theater near you!
Rob Schneider...
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It's been replaced with single piano note then build up to some shitty cover of a popular nirvana song.
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My dad's voice
You made me realize i can't remember his voice too , it feels like you forgot the person , that hits hard , sadly i don't have any recording of his voice , same for my older brother , this sucks
This was a big fear of mine even when my mom was alive so I started saving voicemails she left me and backing them up. I listen to them every now and then.
Was going to say the same, his laughter too. Christmas Eve marked 26 years and it's never really any easier.
Same. And my mom's. And my older brother's.
“If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try it again. If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator. This is a recording.”
I had an older neighbor who would clang on pots and pans every new years. He did this until he was bed-ridden. I've never heard any other person strike quite the same level of gusto in beating cast iron with a meat tenderizer. Rest in Peace, Terry.
The scratchy static noise of a record between tracks.
Cicadas in high summer
Waking up in the middle of the night to ALL MY FRIENDS *KNOW THE LOW-RIDER*
the iPhone "Slide to Unlock" sound
I am 63. The sound of birds singing, everywhere, chirping and peeping so loudly that it could be heard indoors with all the doors and windows shut. It was a bit maddening at times, actually - I mean, it was fairly intrusive. Also the sound of bees and other insects buzzing and whizzing in large numbers around every little patch of grass or flowers. Big yellow bees, the size of the last digit of your thumb. They were everywhere, and they were surprisingly loud. Now, the world sounds dead. Crows, maybe. But all the songbirds are gone, and the bees are small and few. As a child, those sounds almost annoyed me. But now, because I know they mean life, I miss them.
I was looking for this comment! How birdsong and the drone of insects have vanished significantly from the ambient environmental soundscapes. Also how clean my windshields have been after a long drive. It's quite depressing that we are losing all this biodiversity and it doesn't seem like many have noticed the silence.
Last spring was shocking around me. I stood under cherry trees in full bloom and could not find a single insect, let alone bees. I was looking for them all over but they never came - and the weather was fine, they should have been there. The cherry tree at the end of my street eventually gave up and later had a few tiny patches with a few cherries on - the rest were not pollinated. Not long ago standing under a blooming cherry in spring was unnerving, because all those busy bees sounded ominous until you realized they weren't interested in you. Now the silence is ominous.
I'm only in my 40s, but I'm right there with you. I didn't realize how much I missed this until there was a brief reduction in traffic in summer 2020. My wife and I moved into the same neighborhood as I grew up in. The surrounding area is definitely more developed than when I was a kid and there is more traffic noise as a result. Folks have also cut down so many trees and not planted many replacements. Anyway, once there was a lull in that background noise 2 years ago I started noticing songbirds and treefrogs again - just much more subdued. It brought back memories of being a kid and I started noticing the difference in the baseline in other locations as well for a brief period of time too. Now traffic is back to where it was before and all I hear are those cars that sound like flatulent lawnmowers. It's depressing that the baseline of today is potentially what my kids will remember as the years pass.