10 technology noises of the past

From a dial up modem to a video rewind...

Published 8th Mar 2016

With all of the excitement surrounding our What’s That Noise competition, we thought we would have a search for the ten best technology noises of the past.

1. A dial up modem A dial up modem is the kind of thing nightmares are made of. That screeching noise that would last for ages and half of the time your internet still wouldn’t load!

2. TV static TV static was the noise a TV made when it couldn’t get signal. We rarely hear it anymore as most TV’s just go silent when they can’t tune in, which tends to only be during a bad storm.

3. You’ve got mail In years gone by our PC was polite enough to inform us in a cheery voice that we had mail, now it just dings or beeps, oh and we always have mail.

4. The Nokia ringtone When this sound rang out everyone would be reaching for their mobile!

5. The MSN notification sound 90’s kids will remember the excitement of the msn notification when your best friend (who probably lived two doors down) or your school crush logged on.

6. Tuning a radio It used to be a lot harder to tune into Forth 1 as you had to fiddle around with those twisty dials and battle through tons of frequency. A life where you would have struggled to find your station? Say it isn’t so…

7. A slideshow projector changing slides Mainly heard in a work presentation or school assembly, the click of a projector changing slides was never a noise that indicated excitement.

8. A phone literally ring Although you still hear a phone ring (mainly a landline), you never actually hear it ring the way previous phones would, as they had real bells inside.

9. A video rewind Rewinding a video seemed a lot harder than rewinding a DVD, you could never get it quite right, and you could hear the reels of tape inside the video spinning around rapidly, which a lot of the time could result in the video actually breaking!

10. An analogue alarm clock Before everyone used their phones as alarms, most people had an analogue alarm clock. It made an awful noise, but there was no chance of pressing snooze over and over again and then dosing back off!

And that’s our roundup of the 10 technology noises of the past.

Have you heard? Boogie in the Morning is playing ‘What’s That Noise?’ for BIG cash. Listen Weekdays 6am to 7pm for your chance to win £1000!

Find out more about our What’s That Noise competition and listen online now!