Hacker News Reader

Comment by seapunk | Hacker News Reader

I would like to hear this sound [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCPIUGnHQ8] on the landing page.

In 1999, my future wife and I, after an initial in person meeting, chatted incessantly over ICQ. It's how we really got to know each other.

To this day, this 'uh-oh!' sound makes me tingle all over.

Similar story here, but for me and my (now ex-)wife, it was AIM.

I think you can thank Mirabilis founders! So much people have good memories thanks to ICQ.

Yup. It also had random chat feature which i enjoyed quite a lot. Made my first online friends (whom i ended up meeting in real life, and are still friends with to date).

The ICQ “uh-oh!” sound is still the iMessage custom sound for my best friend’s contact, because I remember spending sleepless muddy summer nights of 1999 chatting with him on the crazy realtime chat feature.

Poignant first comment on Youtube: "The internet I actually liked..."

I have similar feelings. Same thing with IRC OpenProjects for example.

Deeper down in the comments you get a story about how this sound came to be. Who knows if it's true, but it's more fun to give the benefit of the doubt.

Scott Chapman:

> The actual origin of the Uh Oh sound: My ex wife and I used to talk in Squeaky Voice a lot and were quite good at it. I used both WS_FTP and ICQ back in the day and I made the original recording of this sound and sent it to one or both of those companies. I think I sent it to WS_FTP first where it was used to indicate an error in connecting to a remote host. I don't recall if I sent it to ICQ or if they got it from WS_FTP. Someone below said it came from Gremlins. That is not the case. Happy Trails!

DJHEADPHONENINJA replies:

> Why would you just record your voice and send out to companies? Sounds pretty weird man. I'll go with Gremlins because I just watched the movie and heard this sound effect so I had to google the true origin of the ICQ sound.

Scott returns:

> Go with gremlins if you like but the sound is not the same. Back in those days it was not about remuneration.

After installing ICQ for the first time, I distinctly remember thinking that ICQ straight up copied the sound from WS_FTP, which I had already been using for a while and where it was used as an error sound. They are definitely the exact same samples. Interesting to hear the story.

This is so nostalgic! 15 years later and I still remember my ICQ!

I'm very nostalgic too. It was the beginnings of the Internet in France and this is the first app my brother installed on my computer, he told me "with this you can make a lot of new friends around the world" I was so glad everytime I heard this sound.

2005 was the beginning of the Internet in France? What year is there now?

Given recent news, they are started last year at 1789 and went back to 1347.

France is living in a parallel universe.

1997 was the time when my brother installed ICQ and it was the beginning of Internet service for consumers in France.

This is my SMS notification sound now. So far no one has mentioned knowing what it is :[

My sms sound as well, IT people regularly turn and look at me very confused.

This is crazy how it still feels like instant dopamine hit.

unfortunately it's copyrighted by Teletubby Inc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com