I always thought more that it sounded musical somehow.
But then again, I am a huge fan of things like Progressive Industrial Death Metal, so maybe this doesn't amount for much...
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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Please tell me I’m not the only 90’s kid that air guitars to the 52k dialup.
52k modems where cool but fax machines.... fuck fax machines. If you ever dialed one by accident you know what I mean.
Does anyone still use fax machines?
I'm from Germany. German bureaucrats love fax machines
That's usually because regulations were made that you have to use a fax, so that's what they still do. I heard that this was because you can correlate phone records to the date and time on the fax to prove who sent it.
Yeah. I guess that checks out.
I bet you could make lots of money introducing them to the copy machines that can also automatically scan and email documents…
Ironically that won't help. Email is unencrypted and you're not allowed to send "sensible data" over it as it would be violating the GDPR.
On the other side you're technically not allowed to use a fax machine for that either as the recipient might forward faxes to an email inbox and that'd be unencrypted.
But nobody talks about fax being unencrypted either... Also the argument for fax is that POTS is a direct connection between two fax machines while the internet wouldn't be and were easier to eavesdrop on. Since everything is SIP nowadays,... But I don't know what they're thinking besides "we've done that for all those years why wouldn't it work now?"
It’s important to note that fax machines aren’t point-to-point either. Your data is still passing through someone else’s switches (probably fewer hops, mind.) and then there’s the physical security on the other end to wonder about.
The last fax I saw was in high school and it was left out for any one to grab documents from. (Well. Inside the school library right near the librarians desk.)(she had a somewhat unearned reputation for being terrifying, so, you’re mileage might carry there.)
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I see them in medical environments sometimes. Occasionally simpler than finding some compatible network method that complies with all the privacy requirements to just send screaming screeches direct point to point.
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Lawyers, courts, and insurance companies still do for various legal reasons. It’s deeply irritating.
The Japanese: こんにちは！
State government agencies often still use faxes.
Or worse, get dialed up yourself by a faxmachine with a wrong number in its memory.
It will try. And try. And try.
And at some point, you will just shut down your phone and hope it is over soon when the remote side finally cancels the unsuccessful sending operation.
Serious headbanging instead on my side!
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When I was young, the whole "you might be a redneck if ... " thing was popular and commonly aped. One example I saw was "you might be a geek if ... "
One of the qualifications was "you leave the modem speaker on after being connected because you think it sounds like the ocean, the perfect accompaniment for 'surfing the web.'"
I've always interpreted "Binharic hymns" in 40k to just be modem noises.
I'm fan of dubstep so I relate to you
Same, I also scream out in pain, inside, when I have to perform a handshake and negotiate communication protocols.
People take it for granted but it's actually such a cool bit of engineering, we had a world-changing technology, but it would take decades to get lines set up and wouldn't really be too useful until then. But engineers realized by literally playing and listening to beeps over an existing widespread utility in phone lines, you've just given almost everyone access to the internet overnight, with almost 0 infrastructure cost.
Today I found out dial-up literally used the phone lines.
All the pieces were there, I just never thought about it.
Found the gen Z kid lol.
Anyone who actually used it was painfully aware of that fact. If anyone wanted to make a phone call, no more internet for you, and in some cases incoming phone calls could bounce you offline. Some people paid for a dedicated phone line for the internet but that was extremely rare for personal use.
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This pic is an acoustic coupler, which played sounds and listened to them from the handset. Modems would connect directly to the phone circuit, bypassing actual sound waves (although they did still have a little speaker so the you could hear what they received).
20th century engineers: The worst thing I can possibly imagine is this cable getting disconnected. I would rather the entire thing get ripped apart or pulled off the shelf. Two screws, so it stays tight during combat.
Monitor connectors: "I'll destroy all your hardware before I give up connecting this stuff. You can put as much punishment as you need!"
Disk drivers: "Help! The user sneezed! The disk is lost!"
Look what they need to approximate a fraction of our experience. 😅
D-sub connectors still work fine if you don't screw them in. They were also used in industrial applications where you really didn't want them getting disconnected though.
I havent seen a modem like that in 40 years, damn I'm old.
But fun part I was the only kid in my neighborhood (maybe the county) w/ 2 phone lines into his house in 1982. The Bell guys were pretty vocal about it. My dad was a big wig at Digital, nothing like a VT125 at home.
I havent seen a modem like that in 40 years
My parents still used one until about 15 years ago.
Downside of living in the nice rural, but broadband-free, countryside...
I can understand having dial-up 15 years ago, but not having a more modern modem is wild.
They didn't use an acoustic coupler as in the image any more, you are correct ;-)
The noise was also still emitted by the more modern variants during dialing and connection establishment, and as I was reading the meme's text without paying much attention to the symbolic picture, I instantly thought of the standard 56k modem we still had.
Ahh.
The sound was also very different with the later modems. I started on a 9600 baud, and moved to 14400, 28800, and eventually 56k, and they all had different sounds.
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I wish there was a search engine that only searched text based websites or at least sites that don't have ads. 90s internet was amazing. Tons of websites ran by average people passionate about their interests, giving oral histories about things. Our computers were screaming, trying to tell us not to lose sight of what it was meant for.
I think Kagi has a 'small web' feature.
Kagi looks like it's part of the problem. It exactly looks like that 2000s meme that showed a dystopian future where Comcast sells websites like cable channels.
The whole point is that you're paying them as a service rather than them using you as a feedstock for the ad industry. I don't object to paying for search personally.
I wish there was a search engine that only searched text based websites or at least sites that don’t have ads.
When you use Lynx Browser, everything on the internet is text:
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Is there a reason we specifically used those sounds for the communication? Like, surely it didn't have to sound like feral cats fucking, right?
I'll not sure it had to make any sound.
All you had to do to silence the handshake was to send the command ATM0 down the serial line before dialing. The sound, visualized and explained
yeah but it could tho, right?
While this is funny, isn't it ironic that's the same period where the internet was actually good?
everything is good until someone decides to make money from it.
preach.
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Someone should return those stolen pixels in that picture.
This picture is from the olden days, when pixels were rare.
Not the olden days I was there and I'm not old. Get off my modem.
No neee to get angry gramp. We'll get you some of that nice luke warm pudding and move your chair in front of the window in the sun. Okay? =)
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Also, given how telephones like the one from the photo were the main way out of the simulation in The Matrix, the cry/screech was from someone outside The Matrix. Whoever was crying/screeching, was trying to warn about how computers, simulation within the simulation, would be further trapping us inside The Matrix. Now the telephones are gone, and so is our only line to whoever was trying to warn.
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