What Does the Event Loop Sound Like? | Hacker News Reader

What Does the Event Loop Sound Like?

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49 pointsronenlh23 comments

Back in 1979 I wrote a Z80 machine language program on a TRS-80 Model I[0] to implement the Pollard Rho algorithm[1] and explore factoring repunits[2]. To monitor it I would put an AM radio next to the machine and listen to the noise.

The "Run around the loop" phase made a Chuntering[3] noise, and then the GCD[4] phase, implemented via Euclid's Algorithm[5] made a wonderfully ascending whoosh!

It was fairly straight-forward to know where the code was, and what it was doing, and it was great to fall asleep to of an evening.

================

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollard%27s_rho_algorithm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repunit

[3] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/chunteri...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_common_divisor

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_common_divisor#Euclid...

I once had a computer where if I attached my headphones to the output of the sound chip on the main board, I would get all sorts of weird squelchy noises that somehow were linked to what the machine was doing. The machine being idle sound a certain way, starting program A had a certain signature, starting program B had a different one... it reminded my of the olden times, of knowing certain things just from the sounds from the disk drive.

I like the the noise of HDD's, I can tell what my NAS's are up to without even needing to check.

That would be almost every PC up until ~2000-2005 unless you got a very expensive high end sound card.

You can still get that today with bad power design or user error https://youtu.be/KQTt-7F3MYw?t=317

Yeah, it was similar, though I could even hear the mouse coursor move. Very faintly though, it was pretty much unnoticeable when the computer was playing sound. It also didn't sound as much as static like in the video, it was really high-pitched (probably a lot of it was beyond my hearing threshold). All in all I would love to have it as an option.

Yep, me too, I still remember most of the distinct sound patterns of everyday use.

Possibly related:

"Peep (The Network Auralizer): Monitoring Your Network With Sound"

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedin...

Wow Soundcloud only lets you listen to three of the sounds before it tries to force you to download their app. You might want to host the sounds elsewhere.

This would be great in gamedev to consume various performance numbers when optimizing. I have the problem that if I'm looking at the framerate then I'm not looking at the frame and vice versa, so I end up repeating the same actions over and over again. Experiencing performance as audio rather than a visual indicator is a great idea.

Very cool and new way of thinking

That is just wave debugging with extra steps. Really, I wait when software industry "reinvents" event tracing used in HW simulations (RTL or mixed signal) :) At least then GTKWave would get proper support :)

Could be very useful for effortless diagnostics.

Diffie-Hellman sounds very spooky, love it!

> Warning: when tinkering with sound, it’s very important to output things at safe levels to avoid damaging one’s hearing or worse: one’s headphones.

As someone who needs to wear hearing aids, it's somewhat depressing to see hearing loss treated as a joke. Hearing all the little noises of the world as you interact with it is more precious than many people realise.

I really apologize. I'm fixing it now.

Thank you, and sorry if I came across as too negative about what is actually a great article, from which I learned a lot.

On the theme of the article, sound is a great way to understand what is going on, and I really like how you've used it here. I think some people believe that hearing mainly applies to obvious sounds such as speech and music, but it is, as you demonstrate here, an excellent diagnostic tool. I've personally learned that all of the little sounds contribute significantly to ones mental map / model of the world to the extent that I'm prepared to believe that total deafness would be as devastating, in the long term, as total sight loss.

I'm sorry to hear that. No, your reply wasn't too negative considering it's a very serious loss. Yes, as you said, we underestimate the power that small sounds have, and that we, as professionals, are losing this accidental feature from our tooling.

>I'm sorry to hear that

just keep rubbing it in

It's good to raise that point, but it's clearly just a light joke.

If you would have phrased this comment as a PSA (I have hearing loss and it's not great, please take care of your ears everyone!), it would have come better off. Your current comment just feels like it's critizing the author for a very minor joke.

What is a PSA? (Google didn't help.)

PSA: Public Service Annoucement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_service_announcement

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