Those Sounds Come & Gone

On my Facebook page this past Saturday, I posed the question:
"What are the once iconic sounds you no longer hear? Typewriters, rotary dial tones, film cameras, analog cash registers... what else comes to mind?

Friends responded with sounds that spanned generations, only to be lost only in the last one.

Ann Pickard The sound of your floppy disk ejecting from your computer.

Kristen Mellon The automated lady's voice when you'd call for the time and the automated man's voice when you'd call for the weather. Air raid siren drills on Fridays (at 10am? - I used to wonder why an enemy wouldn't choose to simply bomb at the scheduled siren test date and time).

Teri Farrell-Gittins The scratching sound from the needle on your record, going around and around. The sound of your tape getting caught in the tape player.

Tom Grell Payphone coin dropping.

Cheryl Pelly Percolator Coffee Pot.

Hubba Bubba The muted clicking of a TV channel tuning dial.

Ophelia Chong The sound of a cassette taping rewinding.

Ophelia Chong Oh, VHS tape deck taking in the tape.

Ophelia Chong Fax machine sound.

Ann Pickard The clinking sound of milk bottles being dropped off in the a.m. by the Adohr man.

Ophelia Chong Modem handshake (Remember hearing that when you dialed in for AOL?)

Ophelia Chong And soon the sound of mail coming through the mail slot.

Ophelia Chong The "punching" sound of radio station buttons on a car radio.

Shad Cruz The 'slice-slice-slice whiirrrr' of a manual lawn mower.

Ann Pickard The sound and the satisfaction of slamming down the phone.

Ophelia Chong The sound of an old tube television turning off.

Laurie Lightfoot The sound of an old wringer washing machine, or even a top load machine now.

Laurie Lightfoot The sound of an old knob and tube radio.

Laurie Lightfoot The old cash registers....remember when machine math was a subject in high school?

Laurie Lightfoot Muscle cars at a stop light.

Jaime Wolf A busy signal.

Laurie Lightfoot The guy with the whistle before the doors close on the subway trains... now it just bing bongs.

Cassandra Miller How about the way old metal car doors sounded.

Tonia Wierzel How about an electric can opener? Remember those?

Thank you all for bringing back memories of a by gone era.

Image: Ophelia Chong / Dial Tone