Dial Up Modem Handshake Sound - Spectrogram
Why Hacker News recommends it
Linked as a nostalgic and clear way to see what the modem handshake is doing, and as an example of sounds people can recognize.
What it is
A spectrogram visualization of the sounds in a dial-up modem handshake, with an annotated image explaining each noise. It shows how the handshake's tones map to the negotiation steps.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2014 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Fuzzwah · 2015-03 · on “The sound of the dialup, pictured and explained (2012)”
After reading the explanation I went back and watched this youtube video again and it made more sense to me: [this video]
Cites draugadrotten · 2014-09 · on “Scientists can use their ears instead of their eyes to process data more rapidly”
I grew up with the bleeping chirps of software loading from 300bps modems and "turbo" C64 tape recorders. I could easily recognize different games from the sound they made when loading, and it is trivial to recognize the various modem handshakes. [this video] [LINK]
Cites DiThi · 2015-03 · on “The sound of the dialup, pictured and explained (2012)”
In this link [this video] you can hear an additional sound pattern at the end that is not explained in the article or the image, but I remember hearing it every time I connected via modem. Can someone explain what it is?
Cites whoopdedo · 2016-01 · on “Thanks for Trumpet Winsock”
Did you know each manufacturer had a unique sound for their v90 handshake? This one sounds like a Lucent WinModem. (Based on listening to the sounds here[1]. Yay for RealAudio!) The USR/3Com modems were two "bongs" (four if the higher speed failed). But I was always fond of the Rockwell sweep[2]. Of course, required reading is HN favorite Oona Räisänen's excellent analysis of a modem handshake. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video] [3] [LINK]
Cites muxator · 2017-11 · on “The sound of the dialup, pictured (2012)”
3d spectrogram: [this video] Animation of the picture illustrated in this article: [LINK] If you live with someone >= 30, turn up the volume and wait for him/her to appear at the door for a nostalgia moment...
Cites tpmx · 2022-08 · on “Earbirding – How to Visualize Sounds”
Here's a 3d visualization of a dial up modem handshake sound apparently made using iZotope Ozone 5 (from 2011): [this video]
Cites jerf · 2024-10 · on “Scientists working to decode birdsong”
However, another major reason is that people have repeatedly gone seeking for language-like or human-language-level behaviors in animals, and repeatedly and consistently failed. It is also worth pointing out that detecting language is a great deal easier than understanding language. Something like [this video] is reasonably recognizable as clearly some sort of language even if we have no (unassisted) human idea what it is saying. We can tell with quite high confidence that most animal sounds are not hiding some deeper layer of information content. Such exceptions as there are, like whalesong, take you back to my first paragraph, though. The idea that language is a uniquely human phenomenon may be