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).

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.