If you get dizzy, don’t look back. Or yes, for fun. We invite you to participate in a small experiment in which we will share with you a series of technological sounds from bygone times. So you can check to what extent you are a true veteran of technology. And even if, like us, you feel a bit older, there’s no denying that you’ll be satisfied by remembering those good times you shared with tools and gadgets of yesteryear. Do you dare to unlock some memories?
In the world of technology, time advances by leaps and bounds. To some it seems like yesterday when we first connected to the Internet. We are old, but our spirit is fueled by technological experiences that we will never forget. Next, you will be able to discover in which level you are of that prestigious club of veteran users and you will do it by means of sounds. You sure have fun.
Modem
Before fiber and even before our beloved ADSL, the modem was used. That device that your parents confiscated when you spent too much time online or if there was someone who wanted to use the line, because it overlapped and both things could not be done at the same time.
The days of the modem were glorious. Today we no longer worry about spending more or less time on the Internet, but in that period you had to ration the connection, because it was not cheap. We would download the mail at full speed with Eudora and disconnect the connection to read it and write the responses. Then you reconnected and sent them. More than one did not manage their connection times well and ended up with totally amazing bills. Today this sound is still in the memory of all users of that time.
game loading
As you can see, we are not going to put the different sounds in chronological order to play distraction and make this retro review a little more lively. Considering that we have talked about the modem, we cannot avoid talking now about the loading of tape computer games. After all, they used very similar sound patterns. The best thing is that when the modem arrived, those of us who grew up with Amstrad or Spectrum computers (among others), would listen to the noise of the device and say “look, like tape games”.
Now everything is in the past and the feeling is doubly nostalgic. The load of the computer games on the tape surely caused the tension of more than one child to soar above the levels tolerable by the organism. Because you never knew if the game, after waiting for 5 or 10 minutes, would end up working. Sometimes it would crash and you had to start over. But it had its fun part, like seeing the drawing that was forming on the screen, the party of crazy colors that would have made Pikachu blush or the counter in figures that was decreasing and that you wished that it would not stay still.
messaging programs
Today we use WhatsApp, at least for now. But in the past, messaging had many identities. The truth is that although it is obvious that today it is more comfortable to be in contact because we carry the tool on our mobile phones, in the past we used highly efficient messaging. How many programs do you remember that you used to talk with your friends or meet new people?
Some names surely sound familiar to you, and their sounds, even more so. For example, ICQ, the flower program that was not the leader in Spain, but was fantastic for communicating with “cool” people and talking with people from abroad. When the “oh-oh” sounded you would quickly go to the monitor to see who had written to you. That oh-oh that is also similar to that of the Worms worms, and that was iconic.
You will also possibly remember IRC, which was the leading communication system in our country at the time. Everyone was downloading the mIRC program, after which you always ended up seeing the photo of its developer, Khaled Mardam-Bey. The sounds in this software are harder to place, especially since everything changed a lot depending on whether you used scripts or the basic program. Also, usually what you listened to the most were MIDI songs that you played in the background or your own screams when an op kicked you off a channel.
And finally, there can be no retro messaging section without talking about MSN Messenger. When this software arrived is when the throne that IRC had occupied began to shake. Many people began to chat privately on it and it made the trends begin to change. This video brings together many of those sounds, including receiving a message or the mythical buzz.
the first consoles
There are two sounds that are burned into the memories of many fans of gaming and retro consoles. The first: the original Game Boy. The children who had the first portable Nintendo cartridge console were phenomenal and they remember that sound that you can hear in the following video. Those were times to leave your eyesight trying to play Tetris even when the light was not adequate (it never was).
The second of the unforgettable console sounds is that of the first PlayStation. It was recently heard again in the free game Astro’s Playroom on PlayStation 5 and it was a moment filled with nostalgia. When you heard it you knew you were going to have a great time.
polaroid camera
Surely you also had one, or your parents, or your brother. The Polaroids that took photos instantly and caused everyone to shake them so that the image would come out sooner, were a global success. They did not have the same quality as the photos that were taken with other cameras and whose film you had to take to the photo store, but they were very practical for allowing you to capture images instantly.
The sound is also unforgettable and even continues to be widely used in all types of film or video game productions, since it has come to be included in what we culturally associate with the sound of a camera.
traditional phone
Before the smartphone or mobile phone with a flip, what we all had at home was the classic telephone with the rotary dialing system. It didn’t take long for wireless models to take off that made you feel like you were in the future, but for a long time these phones were the norm.
The best thing is not the sound they generated when they called, because it was typical of a telephone that has nothing nostalgic either, but the noise of the turning system every time you dialed a number. That does have a nostalgic effect that is worth recovering.
VHS Rewind
As the video store always reminded you: films had to be rewound before returning them, although not everyone did. The sound that the video made when you put the tape to rewind varied a lot depending on the model or the speed of the machine. But it used to be quite annoying and if you did it at night, surely someone at home would end up angry.
Before Netflix, before DVDs and before everything that is normal today, movies, when they reached their end, did not start again automatically. You had to do this process so you could see her again. So it made sense that so many people didn’t rewind them when they returned them to the Blockbuster.
There are many other sounds
Now that we’ve kindled the nostalgia inside you, what you could do is go to YouTube and keep looking for sound ideas for old things you might miss. If you want to put a comment in the text sharing your recommendations, we would love to hear them!
Although it’s been a long time and these kinds of sounds make us feel old, as we said before, we feel very lucky to have these kinds of memories and have enjoyed seeing how technology progressed like that. What a trip!
