Macintosh Startup Sound History [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
It was always incredibly mesmerising to unwrap a new Mac, boot it and hear that sound. Like buying a car and listening to the engine powering on the first time.
EDIT: In fact I think Apple may have done something like this in their own EFI for the startup chime on Intel Macs – compared to PPC Macs, the sound was always a little delayed and clearly played further into the boot process.
While some would argue that such post-bios/boot beep is not necessary in modern computers, I disagree, especially on machines that do not have built-in monitors or on headless system. Sometimes, I am left to wonder if the computer booted ok. I sometimes have check the monitor/cable/etc... just to see if it actually turned on.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130302075708/http://blog.parse...
That must've been during the pre-historic Internet times...
Not at all. The internal speaker of a Mac will play any "system notification" sound effects.
Here's[1] the macOS audio mixer. I've right-clicked a source here. Notice the separate "Sound Output" and "Alerts and Sound Effects" choices here. By default, external speakers will be used for "Sound Output", but "Alerts and Sound Effects" will stay pinned to the internal speaker.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/2Z0GB04.png
The simplest way to notice this is to empty the Trash on a Mac Mini (or a Mac Pro.) The crumple sound comes from the computer!
I think the justification for this is that, even if you have an external set of speakers plugged into your computer, you might have them off. Apple wants the Mac to still be able to beep at you to get your attention, even if your speakers are off (just like a PC can with its PC speaker.)
(Of course, you can reassign the "Alerts and Sound Effects" to your regular audio source, if you want to be able to mute them as well.)
Also, fun fact: if you don't plug in any external audio sources—for example, if you plug in an HDMI monitor to a Mac Mini that has no HDMI audio support, and don't plug in an audio-out cable—then all audio will come out of the internal speaker. Try it! (This was a common "thing" in computer labs back in the Power Mac days. You'd try to watch a YouTube video, but the computer would just have a CRT and no speakers attached. So you'd hear tinny sound from the tower!)
That being said, I have to say that the sound my apple laptop makes when it boots (which doesn't happen often; there is no wake-from-sleep sound) is oddly comforting.
I am actually disappointed it is being removed.
There's a reason for that. Tim Cook is a bean counter, not a technologist, and not an artist.
Steve Jobs was a technologist, and a wannabe artist.
"The goal was never to beat the competition, or to make a lot of money; it was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater. Steve often reinforced the artistic theme; for example, he took the entire team on a field trip in the spring of 1982 to the Louis Comfort Tiffany museum, because Tiffany was an artist who learned how to mass produce his work."
Source: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
That startup sound is a great idea example of the importance of the utility of affordances in interface design.
After you’ve done something that might have hosed your whole system, the sound alone can bring a sense of relief that at least some life is left in the machine.
Because the stakes are actually kind of high for those making a living with their computer.
http://reddit.com/r/loadingicon and similar places list interesting (if not especially useful/practical) concept art ostensibly useful as loading graphics.
Is there somewhere I can similarly find good small sound effects useful as startup chimes? I'm only aware of the Mac and Indy boot sounds, which obviously surface due to their reputation as being used at boot time. Surely there are other cool sound effects, I'm just not sure where to look for them.