Are you nostalgic for the clicking of a typewriter? Do you ever recall the annoying “uh-oh”s of ICQ messenger (somehow that’s still around)? Have you forgotten the noise Windows 95 used to make upon start-up? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, it’s time to stop by the Museum of Endangered Sounds.
Save the sounds
The Museum of Endangered Sounds (MOES) is an online collection of phone, tech and gaming noises you rarely, if ever, hear much anymore. Created by Brendan Chilcutt in 2012, the collection contains (so far) 33 sounds. They’re the sounds that we (millennials) grew up with – the scratches of a cassette tape, the beeps of a beloved Tamagotchi, the clicks of an Olympus camera, etc. All you have to do is click on any of the 33 images on the homepage and submerge yourself into bittersweet nostalgia.
Initially, MOES had begun as a college project. Three students from Virginia Commonwealth University have created a Flash-driven site, pairing the sounds with vintage animation. Marybeth Ledesma, Phil Hadad, and Greg Elwood have created the “Brendan Chilcutt” persona for the project – the photo of a conventionally “geeky” guy on the site is actually a friend of theirs.
According to the greetings on the site, the creators’ mission in the next few years is to develop the “markup language to reinterpret the sounds as a binary composition.” The sounds of the old gadgets that have been replaced with “devices with sleek, silent touch interfaces” are distinctive. Some might even enjoy what MOES has to offer as a way to return briefly to the “simpler” times, like your family’s first dial-up Internet connection or signing onto AOL Instant Messenger.
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by Marcin Wichary. The screenshot is owned by the Museum of Endangered Sounds.
Source: Museum of Endangered Sounds / Aaron Leitko (Washington Post) / Olivia Solon (Wired) / Donald Liebenson (Vanity Fair)
