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Comment by dejobaan | Hacker News Reader

Pretty neat. It tangentially reminds me of when we used to be able to hear HDDs clatter away, or waaaaay back when we used be able to hear EM interference from whatever was going on in a computer.

There was an episode of Cowboy Bebop, where a mechanic held a wrench against an engine cowling to see how much it vibrated (likely a real thing people do with real engines?) and, of course, the computer sounds in the Enterprise-D, along with blinkenlights.

All this seems like the same kind of "translate data into a form humans can perceive." I'm not sure what immediate value this utility has, but I like it.

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I forget where I read this (maybe PG's blog?) but I read some early 2000s startup had some kind of mechanical device that responded to website visitors, so everyone in the office could hear the traffic in realtime.

I also heard stories of professors who would know a program had a bug based on the sounds the computer was making. (Back when they were slightly slower!)

I’ve heard this about mechanical electronic signage used for team dashboards 30-40 years ago.

You’d sit in the office with your back to it and the clicky clacky sounds would be going every so often when the content updated. but people would know the specific clicky clacky sound that required them to turn around and read the sign based on their job function.

I’ve also heard of day traders mapping stock tickers or other data into sound and having headphones on all day with it

I've heard of people 'walking' old hard drive cabinets by fine manipulation of the read/write heads.

I still have a computer that produces slightly different noise (coil whine?) depending what it's doing. Fascinating behavior.

> There was an episode of Cowboy Bebop, where a mechanic held a wrench against an engine cowling to see how much it vibrated (likely a real thing people do with real engines?)

I was watching a documentary about dirt track racing and they showed one of the mechanics on the team who was blind.

He would put a long screwdriver on the engine and hold the handle to his ear. He could debug timing issues by hearing the vibrations.

There is also the case of the water leak detectors in the UK who use basically a long stick with one end on the ground and the other in their ear. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVeEoWTsiiw

The wrench thing is real. My approach to a DIY mechanic’s stethoscope is to stick the handle of a screwdriver against my ear and the tip on whatever I want to listen to. Great for figuring out what part of the machine a noise is coming from.

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