Dial Up Modem Sounds, from 300 bps to 56K

The sound of dial-up at some of the most common speeds, including 300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 14,400, 33,600, and 56K. As noted in the video, the sound of a V.34 connection at either 28,800 and 33,600 will be the same, and both were common around the same time, so I've only included the 33,600 connection.

Note that this isn't intended to be an exhaustive list of all speeds, but a sample of the most common ones. There are many other speeds and protocols, including but not limited to 75, 110, 4800, 28,800, etc. Also note that this video includes a V.90 56K negotiation, which is the one that people are most likely to find familiar. With that said, if it doesn't sound quite right, remember that V.90 deprecated the X2 and Flex 56K standards, which sound quite different.

All but the 56K connection is made through a Teltone TLS-4 telephone line simulator, essentially a 'telephone network in a box'. 56K connections require that the server side be connected digitally, so a Teltone ILS-2000 is used instead, which does the same job but for ISDN (read: digital) phone devices. In this configuration the analog 56K modem is connected to the network via a DIVA T/A ISDN terminal.

Server Specs:
- Cobalt Qube 2
- MIPS RM5231-250Q CPU @ 250MHz
- 128MB EDO RAM
- 13GB Quantum Fireball IDE HDD
- 2x 10/100 Ethernet Ports
- Custom RedHat Linux OS
- Startech PCI2S550 2x Serial Port PCI Card

Laptop Specs:
- Toshiba Tecra 500CDT
- Intel Pentium @ 120MHz
- 144MB EDO RAM
- 1.2GB IDE HDD
- 12.1" 800x600 Active Matrix TFT LCD

Modems:
- Lexicon LEX-11 300 baud acoustically coupled modem
- USR Sportster 1200 Modem
- USR Sportster 2400 Modem
- USR Sportster 9600 Modem
- USR Sportster 14,400 Fax Modem
- USR Sportster 33.6 Fax Modem
- USR Sportster 56K Fax Modem

0:00 Intro
0:04 300 bps Bell 103
0:19 1200 bps V.22
0:31 2400 bps V.22bis
0:46 9600 bps V.32
1:02 14,400 bps V.32bis
1:19 33,600 bps V.34
1:36 56 Kbps V.90

[XENON]

why does the V.90 56k have two bell sounds before it continues the training?

[jonothanthrace]

It's so weird hearing some of these playing so briefly; I'm used to the handshaking taking at least 30 seconds.

[alexvalero]

The fact that someone invested its time to acuratelly transcribe the modem noises into subtitles, made me smile.




Laughed my ass off LOL, I might have a problem.

[Puppy]

I kept waiting for the "Welcome" sound from AOL at the end of the 56K connection 😄

[ophello]

I remember upgrading from 14.4 to 56kbps and thinking “wow, I can download a 2.3Mb file in under 20 minutes? THIS IS SURELY THE FUTURE!”

[nyceyes]

Not only the sounds, but the whole setup was nicely and neatly done, demonstrating the speed of the monitor renders, too. Excellent. 🎉

[randomgeocacher]

Those were the days :) remember hosting my BBS and seeing my friends phone number with something weird like 1200/75 connection, calling him asking wtf he’s trying to connect with giving those weird setups… and him answering that he was screaming and whistling, thinking my BBS had pre-connection audio on. So apparently humans can successfully perform some of the modem handshakes.

[repatch]

What most people don't realize is the hardest one of those to get working was the 56K connection since it requires digital on one side (hence the ISDN modem). BRAVO!

[Ghandacity]

That hollow echo for 56K was the sweetest sound. Until line quality degraded and then it switched to the static with slightly quieter static for 33.6. If it repeated the static again, but without the quieter one, it was time to break and redial.

[jesseg]

Ahhh...the sounds of my entire childhood in one youtube video.

[scottlarson]

In 1982 I built a 300 baud modem from a schematic in Popular Electronics. The hard part was that I had to tune it and I had nothing to tune it with. So I called up a local BBS over and over and held down a key on the computer while I turned the potentiometer back and forth. It took several calls until by chance I hit the right frequency and the key echoed back.

[CrArC]

This is the kind of cool stuff I like to see on YouTube. Definitely V.90 56K was most familiar to me! I'm surprised to see how fast the connection process was at the lower baud rates though, I guess there was less to negotiate once the connection was made.

[lAMNOTGOOMBA]

Awesome! I had been hoping to finally hear all these recorded with the original equipment.

[somecsgo]

That laptop is the one I grew up with; it‘s the reason I went into IT, the reason for where I am now. Thanks for sharing the video :)

[PiPArtemis]

It's fun watching this having previously watched a video breaking down what each tone is doing on the 56k and seeing how it progressed over the years into the more complex series of handshakes and screeches it ends up being at the end

[pukalo]

Dial up modems make some of my favourite sound effects of all time.

[edbe]

I used to work at US Robotics, this was my life for years, if I remember correctly the tail end of the connection that last swoosh sound on all the connections was the compression v42bis / MNP5. We used to be able to tell what the users connections were by ear. Back in the day before the 3 Com merger it was an amazing place to work at.

[IGLArocknroll]

Oh boy, this has brought back some memories. Back in the day (somewhere around 2002) my school still had 56Kbps modems to connect us to the internet. They've upgraded to a DOCSIS cable modem in late 2004 as far as I can remember. We haven't had a proper internet connection at home until 2007, because it was prohibitively expensive. A 5/1Mbps ADSL would've costed something like 1/5th of my father's monthly wage, and the 768/312kbps ISDN was also not cheap either, plus the toll-free part of it was limited to something like 50 hours or 5 GBs if my mind serves me right. In 2007, a new ISP appeared at my location, which has offered a variety of FTTB services for low prices, and we got a 20/10 Mbps service in early September, 2007.

Fun fact: some 14 years later the ISP I've mentioned has hired me to work for them, lol.

[tubeDude]

I see the US Robotics. I worked for *Racal-Vadic* in the '70's. I help design the 9600 Bps Model. And was on the "Standards Comity" that help adopt the "at" command set.

[Matt-dkwl]

I used to run a BBS back in the 90s. You just ran through my childhood. Always loved the BONG BONG BONG 28.8 added.