Ask Slashdot: Sounds We Don't Hear Any More?

J. L. Tympanum writes: While discussing music with my 24-year old son, the Typewriter Song (Leroy Anderson) came up. Within 10 seconds he had it playing on his laptop, but he didn't really get the joke because he had never seen a typewriter, nor heard the characteristics sounds — the clack of the keys, the end-of-line bell, the zip of the carriage return — that the typewriter makes. What other sounds do we not hear any more? More points for the longer they lasted (typewriters were around for over a century).

Comments

The whine of the flyback transformer

[russotto]

I always knew that one day I'd no longer be able to know a CRT was in the room from the high-pitched flyback transformer sound, but I always expected it would be because of my own loss of high-frequency hearing. But the CRT pretty much disappeared before that. Length of time: less than the telephone.

Re:The whine of the flyback transformer

[jiriw]

Also typical CRT noise: The Degaussing Powowowowowoing when switching it on (or whenever you liked to do it at the touch of a button on some models).

my mother and my father

[turkeydance]

we didn't record them when we had the chance.

Re:my mother and my father

[PopeRatzo]

we didn't record them when we had the chance.

I hear my mother every time my daughter laughs and I see my father every time I shave. I hear him every time I lay down in bed to sleep at night and make exactly the same tired groan he used to make.

No, I didn't record my parents either, shame on me. Even worse, we had a flood in the 90s and lost a ton of pictures. But memory is better. The sounds are sweeter and the pictures are all photoshopped.

Re:my mother and my father

[TheBilgeRat]

But memory is better. The sounds are sweeter and the pictures are all photoshopped.

This is a beautiful sentiment.

Dial-up

[Arkh89]

Dial-up connection sound.
Somewhat recent...

Extict animals, dead human languages

[Anonymous Coward]

Mankind once knew the sounds of the dodo, the dusky seaside sparrow, and many other now-extinct animals.

We've also lost the sounds of human languages that died before being recorded. The same goes for songs that were neither recorded nor which have written scores.

We've all but lost the sound of the virtuoso castrati male adult singing voice, but given what has to happen to get that voice, this is probably a good thing.

Re:24 years old...

[ShanghaiBill]

...and does not know what a typewriter is?

He knows what a typewriter is, he just doesn't know what they sounded like.

My company had one used by the shipping department, to fill out forms. It was retired in 1994, 21 years ago. We had a company BBQ planned for the following Friday, so someone brought a sledgehammer, and we took turns bashing it to pieces.

Easy

[R3d M3rcury]

Rotary phone.

Floppy drives

[bunratty]

I haven't heard floppy drives for a while. Also, dot matrix printers. And the sound of rotary telephones as you're dialing them. Actually, Mental Floss had an article about this.

Re:Sorta related... the teletype machine

[GarethIwanFairclough]

It has been a long time since I have answered the phone, and heard the tone from a misdialed fax machine. Fax machines aren't completely dead, but they are far less common than they used to be. I think only lawyers are bureaucrats still use them.

They're still used pretty extensively in the British military, especially when it comes to the logistical arms. We used them a lot when we had to get paper work sent out to the upstream depot ASAP for top priority supply demands. Everything else was sent via the computer systems, but as those systems sent stuff off in batches at a particular time of day, we needed a way of bypassing the "batch cycle" as we called it and getting the top priority stuff dealt with immediately.

Lost sounds

[Culture20]

The distinctive whine of an old SCSI drive. The whir-whir-whir-whir-click of a tape cassette rewinding. The flappity-flappity of a movie reel that has gone through the projector. Cha-chunk of a slide projector. The sound old beer cans used to make when ripped open. Dot-matrix printers. Floppy drives. Floppy drives forced to make "music".

Re:Lost sounds

[Culture20]

Soon, the distinctive "tink" when a lightbulb filament breaks.

5 , 4,We are go for Main engine start, 3

[rossdee]

A space shuttle liftoff
And before that a Saturn V liftoff

Not just the high pitched whistling.....

[Ellis D. Tripp]

, which not everyone can hear, but the "Bonnnnnng" sound of the degaussing coil and the crackling sound of the high voltage hitting the CRT at startup...

Spanish Guitar

[rossdee]

and introducing acoustic guitar
Plus
Tubular Bells

Yep, its been over 40 years since Mike Oldfield released his first album

Re:Related - the clack of wheels on the tracks

[srmalloy]

Most lines are welded now, so it doesn't happen any more.

Not the same way, or as often, but you still get the clack as you go over a rail joint; they're just expansion joints and less common. I recall a problem that I ran across in high school, that posited a one-mile continuous length of railroad track, and asked 'if the track expands by one inch, and buckles rigidly, so that it bends only at the middle, and is otherwise straight, how far off the ground is the rail at its midpoint?' The answer is, surprisingly, almost 15 feet (do the math: Pythagorean theorem, hypotenuse 1/2 mile + 1/2 inch, one side 1/2 mile, solve for third side). And you'll still get the rail clacking going over points and frogs in areas where you have switches.