Dial Up Modem Handshake Sound - Spectrogram

izotope ozone 5 - 8192 FFT size, 93.75% overlap.

[jackaryyy]

0:00 Dial Tone
(higher (leftmost) values are the receiving modem, lower are sending modem)
0:07
"Hello, I am a modem. Are you?"
"Yes - I am <this type>"
"Okay then let's use something beyond these basic tones"
”sure"
0:11 *this tone turnd off echo suppression, which could corrupt data*
"I'm going to say 6 times what rate and power I can accomplish"
"Okay, I will say three times what rate I can. And we'll see what match up"
0:14
"Let's test the line, and switch into full data mode"
"Sounds good, I will demonstrate a random max data flow to show capacity."
*The click at the end is the signal to switch to full data mode*
0:16
"I CAN SCREAM THIS LOUD, AND IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS"
"I CAN SCREAM THIS LOUD MYSELF, AND IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS"
(now they can scream together and simultaneously know what eachother sounds like)
0:23 *that very small spike/click is when you stop hearing it. That's what the click would signal*
Both: Authentication complete. Full data floodgates opening
Both: Screaming but they can now understand the other as they scream.

What's crazy is the idea behind this. It's all sound communication

[noahwilliams]

It's amazing that we actually got to hear the sound of two computers talking to each other.

[KenPowers-iz]

When I finally got broadband at age 16 and was relieved to never have to hear this sound ever again, I never thought a good two decades later I'd be listening to a recording of it on purpose

[neilbradley]

I worked on modem firmware for Intel back in the early 90s, and I can still remember all the training sequence milestones. ;-) Very cool to see an FFT of this!

[Anon-]

I've always thought how fascinating it is to hear data transferring between computers. Then to see it visualized adds a whole new layer of coolness.

[NicksWhipShop]

I clearly remember a day years ago, standing in one of the rooms of our basement as a little kid. I had just finished crying, and was upset about my parents not letting me get a snake, or something trivial like that (I'll never remember exactly why) but I was just standing there, and my cat was sitting there staring at me in the same room that I was in. Something about the blank, yet serious look on my cat's face in contrast with the distant sound of one of my parents connecting to the dial up internet in the other room made me burst out laughing. All the weird little electronic sounds and a blank stare of a motionless animal. I have no idea why I remember that day, but it was a good 23 years ago...

[PassiveSmoking]

The soundtrack to my childhood. I even remember hearing that weird noise in the middle of the handshake (0:21) and realising that oh crap, I'm not getting a full speed connection this session and the odds are the line will drop at some point.

[cosmicanomaly]

One of the most nostalgic sounds in my life, right along with the ps1 startup, THX sound system and the song to mario world.

[jimmyfigueras]

For those who were new to the internet in the ‘90s, this sound was like communicating with another planet while watching the dial-up window. I miss the old Yahoo! format where the news was secondary and had no pictures headlined. There was yahoo directory which was so informative and educational

I also miss yahoo’s red logo.

[viliamvacula]

The Czech country band Fešáci actually made a song with a story out of this, about two machines talking to each other and becoming friends. It’s the first track on their Fešáci 2000 album. It’s awesome!

[locust]

Amazing. When you hear it, it sounds like random noise. When you see it, the patterns start to become clear...

[Forkez]

Is there a difference between the handshake sounds back then from country to country? I remember the first part being like this, but we had a bunch of plongy noises in the middle as well, rather than more static.

[LighBulb]

This is amazing. Still remember accidentally picking up the landline as a kid to hear a cacophony of electronic noise like that aye

[dugjay]

I remember getting internet service in 1997 and this still brings a smile to my face. Thanks for explaining all of this!

[SeasideStrangler]

i havent heard this in like 20 years but i still remember every noise like a classic rock song

[SakanaOtoko]

I'm privileged to be old enough to remember this from actually experiencing it, and it really just shows how fast tech has moved that within my lifetime it's nearly obsolete

[snorman]

This is AWESOME! Love the visualization of the DTMF tones.

[Damndrrtyapes]

My first experience with dialup was in college (started 1996), they provided us with an account as long as we were enrolled. There I discovered newsgroups and friends in other countries I could talk to. After college I bought a dialup connection from my dad’s union. Great video and thanks for the memory 😎

[MrSupercar]

At the grand old age of 30, I'd say it's a blessing to have had the privilege of watching technology progress from those pioneering years that were the 1990's and the 2000's into what it is today.

[jimbronson]

I used to build and program modems. The handshake Programs are the same wherever you are . However from country to country or even some various phone company's the handshake may take longer or be shorter. Nothing we heard on this video was static to whoever stated static, Those are sounds the two modems make. Why different in area or country's? The first sounds are low speed testing the phone lines for echos and noises that may cause problems. Next is again low speed connection to ask the modem being called what protocols do each modem support looking for the fastest the two have in common.. If I.E V.32 Bis (14, 499 BPS) then the both test the line again to see if on this connection can the connect at the highest rate. If so they do so. If some of the higher and lower or even mid rand do not make it through they connect as V.32 Bis but at a lower speed in increments of 2400 bps (beeps per second) thus 14, 400 dropps to 12, 000 or 9600 or 7200 or 4800 if bellow 4800 the modems use V23 2400 Bps or switch to yet even slower. These can all sound different to some extent. I seem to have heard V.29 in part of this video used by fax machines most modems supported if fax software was loaded.. Hope this helps. In short same program but depending on line conditions handshake can be fast or take longer. Also not in handshake but recognizing ring from busy signal or ring signals from one country to the next was a chalenge to program. I had to get creative to set Hong Kongs modems to know the differance wirgout causing issues in other coubtrys with other systems, You want to hear a very stranfe sound find a modem from Telebit 19/200 propriatary. That is one strange noise. These devices and propcols were way more complex than cueent digital modems.