On the other hand, actual line printers worked exactly like they look in movies.
But yeah those 9 pin dot matrix printers...24 pin was better, but still pretty loud. I remember visiting a college library during a field trip, and they had an inkjet (I think it was actually a Bubblejet) and it was like, "WOW LOOK HOW QUIET THAT IS!"
Depends on what it was thinking about really. The really rapid clicking noise was generally the mechanical hard drive heads seeking and moving quickly. You could tell if it had been thinking too hard for too long when the mechanical drive sounded like it had sneezed quietly (I'm not joking), that's when you started to back stuff up rather quickly.
The more single-tone longer-note experience was generally reserved for the floppy disks.
The quiet mechanical spin-up noise was often an optical drive spinning the media - usually a CD - up to it's normal reading speed, and you quickly forgot about it.
If it sounded like it was thinking like a early morning bird with a hangover, they were reminiscent of the early 90min tape drives. More industrial drives didn't make that noise thankfully.
The aircraft engine type noise was generally one or more of the case fans giving it some VTEC love to cool a component that was running hot, or if someone smashed the Turbo button.
You guys are too young. Back in the early 80s computer didn't make any noise. A C64 was quiet as a mouse, so was an Amiga 500.
The only noise it made was the ticking of the disk drive. (Usually no HDD in those and no fans)
I have both at home right now, and I am always wishing my gaming rig next to them would be that quiet, and not sound like a hoover going into overdrive.
Ah, nostalgia. Now, where are my rose tinted glasses?
p.s.
Oh yeah I forgot about the monitor whine, but hey that's because I have a permanent tinnitus that sounds exactly the same and usually tune it out... wonder where I got it from?
See, I remember that from friends (our first was a little later, a 286 IBM that was pretty loud).
BUT, my nostalgia comes from the sound of a server room. I ran a BBS as a teen, and later randomly visited all the startup ISPs in the area before one brought me on as employee #3. We started with shelves of external modems before moving to one rack, but when we were bought and those few times I went to real server rooms (and times since) were great. The organization, level sound, raised floors, love it.
Surprisingly I still prefer quiet for my homelab, though.
My high school had a room full of Apples, mostly IIe's but a few GSs floating around, too. I could hear when someone left one of those monitors on the moment I entered the room...
Did a bot/AI write this? No drive sounded like that. Something wrong with the drive if it screamed at you. That‘s the modem. A floppy sounded like a robo-chicken. BROOoonnk -buk-buk-buk BRooonnk BrROooonk-buk-buk….
You may be interested in getting a multi drive NAS then. Mine is full with 8 drives and i can hear them from the next room. It's nice to hear, but sometimes it can be a bit much.
I can still hear the harddrives spin up when someone starts watching something on my homelab. I do miss the clickies, I wonder if you could hook up the disk activity led to a speaker to create fake clicks.
Here's an HDD synth project for that very thing I saw the other day! Though probably won't work for your use case, admittedly. It's intended for retro systems and goes in an ISA slot, and isn't available for sale yet anyway.
Glad those days are gone. These days, a bit of coil whine can get annoying, though luckily my current GPU doesn't suffer from it.
I spent extra on getting quiet fans and haven't had an HDD for almost a decade now.
Those Be Quiet! fans are pretty good btw. Difference between the two that look the same but have different names is one is optimized for air movement while the other is optimized to generate static pressure. Run your fans such that there's a slightly positive pressure and you'll drastically reduce dust buildup... But you don't need the pressure optimized fans to do that, just more intake than exhaust will do so (assuming they are all set to the same speed and are the same size).
The post is clearly hyperbole (I shouldn't have to explain this but apparently some people around here aren't aware of figures of speech), but computers used to be much louder than they are, floppy disks were very "talkative", you could hear the HDD heads move and disks spinning under heavy load, and fans were much louder on average than they are today. On top of that, the motherboard speaker was used very liberally by everything.
Oh, and everyone had mechanical keyboards, but people of culture still do.
Are you saying that because you had the computer next to the dot matrix printer? Because I could see that driving a person to think computers weren't that loud.
47 Comments
dumbass@piefed.social · 92 pts · 140d
The internet used to warn us of the horrors we were about to see when we tried connecting.
underisk@lemmy.ml · 30 pts · 140d
The screeching cry of a long dead apex predator followed by “Welcome! You’ve got mail!”
Danarchy@lemmy.nz · 27 pts · 140d
Dot matrix printer was straight outta jabba’s droid torture chamber
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 139d
limelight79@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
On the other hand, actual line printers worked exactly like they look in movies.
But yeah those 9 pin dot matrix printers...24 pin was better, but still pretty loud. I remember visiting a college library during a field trip, and they had an inkjet (I think it was actually a Bubblejet) and it was like, "WOW LOOK HOW QUIET THAT IS!"
JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 139d
Good thing I never needed to print anything in privacy back then. Those were loud screeching buzzing machines and we just accepted it as normal.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 139d
Ours shook the table but was on so badly that the legs came unbolted over the years.
Then we got a StyleWriter and it was magic even 1/2 page per minute in color!
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz · 21 pts · 140d
Why did computers make the computer thinking noise anyway?
PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk · 62 pts · 140d
Depends on what it was thinking about really. The really rapid clicking noise was generally the mechanical hard drive heads seeking and moving quickly. You could tell if it had been thinking too hard for too long when the mechanical drive sounded like it had sneezed quietly (I'm not joking), that's when you started to back stuff up rather quickly.
The more single-tone longer-note experience was generally reserved for the floppy disks.
The quiet mechanical spin-up noise was often an optical drive spinning the media - usually a CD - up to it's normal reading speed, and you quickly forgot about it.
If it sounded like it was thinking like a early morning bird with a hangover, they were reminiscent of the early 90min tape drives. More industrial drives didn't make that noise thankfully.
The aircraft engine type noise was generally one or more of the case fans giving it some VTEC love to cool a component that was running hot, or if someone smashed the Turbo button.
umbrella@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 140d
ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 140d
And hopefully automatic backups every few minutes?
umbrella@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 140d
JetpackJackson@feddit.org · 11 pts · 140d
"You have become what you swore to destroy"
M137@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 140d
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Itsamelemmy@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 139d
But what about the pterodactyl noise?
PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 139d
Your computer is possessed and needs McAffee VirusScan totes immediates
Bonje@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 140d
Analogue progress bars
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 140d
They imagine pegging and get excited.
Technotica@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 140d
You guys are too young. Back in the early 80s computer didn't make any noise. A C64 was quiet as a mouse, so was an Amiga 500. The only noise it made was the ticking of the disk drive. (Usually no HDD in those and no fans)
I have both at home right now, and I am always wishing my gaming rig next to them would be that quiet, and not sound like a hoover going into overdrive.
Ah, nostalgia. Now, where are my rose tinted glasses?
p.s. Oh yeah I forgot about the monitor whine, but hey that's because I have a permanent tinnitus that sounds exactly the same and usually tune it out... wonder where I got it from?
veroxii@aussie.zone · 13 pts · 140d
I love a good Womp! from pressing the monitor degaussing button.
JetpackJackson@feddit.org · 4 pts · 140d
The what
anton2492@lemmy.nz · 6 pts · 140d
The degauss sound on a CRT display. The 'womp' is the best onomatopoeia to represent it.
JetpackJackson@feddit.org · 2 pts · 140d
Thanks!
TheRagingGeek@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 140d
Those c64 1541 drives could make an unholy racket sometimes, I recall some sneakernet software cloning tools making it sound like a jackhammer
Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 140d
See, I remember that from friends (our first was a little later, a 286 IBM that was pretty loud).
BUT, my nostalgia comes from the sound of a server room. I ran a BBS as a teen, and later randomly visited all the startup ISPs in the area before one brought me on as employee #3. We started with shelves of external modems before moving to one rack, but when we were bought and those few times I went to real server rooms (and times since) were great. The organization, level sound, raised floors, love it.
Surprisingly I still prefer quiet for my homelab, though.
limelight79@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
My high school had a room full of Apples, mostly IIe's but a few GSs floating around, too. I could hear when someone left one of those monitors on the moment I entered the room...
Hexagon@feddit.it · 9 pts · 140d
"What if you could make music with these computer noises?"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCximsD7EJ38jzCNgfP_YTmA
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 3 pts · 140d
My personal favorite is still this one: https://youtu.be/RLXQpJgZklk?is=HGUWnYQasi0IM1wZ I honestly think it sounds cooler than the original.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 139d
Did a bot/AI write this? No drive sounded like that. Something wrong with the drive if it screamed at you. That‘s the modem. A floppy sounded like a robo-chicken. BROOoonnk -buk-buk-buk BRooonnk BrROooonk-buk-buk….
Johanno@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 138d
CDs used to scream. You needed to double the audio volume to hide the read cycles on tomb raider.
obinice@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 140d
It was wonderful, I miss being able to hear my hard drive doing stuff, it was a really handy audible indicator.
HeyJoe@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 139d
You may be interested in getting a multi drive NAS then. Mine is full with 8 drives and i can hear them from the next room. It's nice to hear, but sometimes it can be a bit much.
rosco385@lemmy.wtf · 6 pts · 139d
This post reminds me of the savage joy I felt the first time I fired up a 1u server. Those screaming fans were just chef's kiss
Agent641@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 139d
Anakin Skywalker ITS WORKING! meme
saigot@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 139d
I can still hear the harddrives spin up when someone starts watching something on my homelab. I do miss the clickies, I wonder if you could hook up the disk activity led to a speaker to create fake clicks.
FunnySalt@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 139d
Here's an HDD synth project for that very thing I saw the other day! Though probably won't work for your use case, admittedly. It's intended for retro systems and goes in an ISA slot, and isn't available for sale yet anyway.
YouTube video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sASOfpzPjxg
Project page: https://www.strifestreams.com/hddsynth
xyguy@startrek.website · 4 pts · 139d
I remember it sounding a lot cooler than that.
echodot@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 139d
Also this one
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 139d
Glad those days are gone. These days, a bit of coil whine can get annoying, though luckily my current GPU doesn't suffer from it.
I spent extra on getting quiet fans and haven't had an HDD for almost a decade now.
Those Be Quiet! fans are pretty good btw. Difference between the two that look the same but have different names is one is optimized for air movement while the other is optimized to generate static pressure. Run your fans such that there's a slightly positive pressure and you'll drastically reduce dust buildup... But you don't need the pressure optimized fans to do that, just more intake than exhaust will do so (assuming they are all set to the same speed and are the same size).
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 3 pts · 140d
I can definitely hear my hard drive when I access it. Every folder I go deeper, I can hear it working. It's quite fun.
limelight79@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 139d
This is reminding me of the sounds of loading DOS on our IBM PCjr.
Yeah, I'm old. Get off my Chiclet keyboard. (Actually we had the replacement keyboard, but later we did acquire a Chiclet version somehow.)
one_old_coder@piefed.social · -9 pts · 140d
Fake nostalgia detected, computers were not that loud.
Dadifer@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 140d
It was pretty loud
ViatorOmnium@piefed.social · 20 pts · 140d
The post is clearly hyperbole (I shouldn't have to explain this but apparently some people around here aren't aware of figures of speech), but computers used to be much louder than they are, floppy disks were very "talkative", you could hear the HDD heads move and disks spinning under heavy load, and fans were much louder on average than they are today. On top of that, the motherboard speaker was used very liberally by everything.
Oh, and everyone had mechanical keyboards, but people of culture still do.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 140d
indeed
spinne@sh.itjust.works · 17 pts · 140d
Are you saying that because you had the computer next to the dot matrix printer? Because I could see that driving a person to think computers weren't that loud.
underisk@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 140d
Bet you didn’t hear the whine of CRT coils either.
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 5 pts · 140d
You're right. Just the fans and drives.
Encephalotrocity@feddit.online · 5 pts · 140d
Goldfish detected