Give your PC that retro feel with HDD Clicker

Retro

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4 Jun 2021
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This product, the HDD Clicker, is a curiosity that has to be one of the dumbest products I've seen in a while.

You know how SSDs have rid us of the annoying clicking sounds of hard drives, particularly the louder ones? Well, this product is specifically designed to bring that noise back! On top of that, because it's not the genuine sound, it's very loud and annoying, with a lot more high frequencies to it than a real HDD would generate. In fact, the reviewer muffled it with a piece of tape.

Have a watch and then let us know if you'd put this in your PC.

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Arantor

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24 May 2022
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Um, no. The older hard drives needed the clicky clicky noise because physical heads, physical platters, and you could use that as a 'uh oh the drive's not behaving right, time to get a new one' barometer.

Interesting fact, I'm an Amiga emulation fan, and yet I invariably don't turn on the 'emulate the disk drive noises' because... why would I? Give me sounds that make sense and are by-products of implementation or, don't. Don't mock up sounds because nostalgia.

I also remember the days of going online by DE-DUUHH-de-dommmm-DE-DUUH-dommmmmm-Errrr-UHHHH-shshhshshhshshshshshshshshshhshshs, and was profoundly grateful when I figured out how to plug in ++ATH0 as a Hayes modem command into my modem of the day to shut it up.
 

Retro

Founder
Staff Member
Joined
4 Jun 2021
Messages
4,638 (4.51/day)
and was profoundly grateful when I figured out how to plug in ++ATH0 as a Hayes modem command into my modem of the day to shut it up.
That didn't sodding work on my modem! Quite infuriating at the time. I even tried going the other way, to keep it on all the time for the novelty of it, but that didn't work either. I was actually toying with disconnecting the sounder when I went broadband and that modem was history.

Confession: I still have it, a 56K Origo branded thing, Because Keeps(tm).

I was actually able to create a working dialup connection a couple of years ago since my ISP still supports it and try it out. At a glorious 44Kbps, the connection was so slow that most sites just timed out, some with something half rendered and others with nothing at all. Google.com just about worked, but of course, searching choked it with the results data. It would have been interesting to try NerdZone out, but the domain wasn't even registered then, let alone a website created.

Interesting to see how in the 20 years since I've had broadband, dialup has gone from being a royal PITA to completely unuseable. Seriously, I just wouldn't bother, even as an emergency connection.
 

live627

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Joined
12 Jul 2022
Messages
170 (0.27/day)
I don't even have a hard drive in my computer, so why on earth would I ever want to emulate the noise? Also,modern drives are very quiet. Even the old IDE drive in my Windows 98 computer (10GB) is quiet. Not as much, but the CD drive still handily dominates the noise levels.
 

Arantor

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Joined
24 May 2022
Messages
968 (1.43/day)
That didn't sodding work on my modem! Quite infuriating at the time. I even tried going the other way, to keep it on all the time for the novelty of it, but that didn't work either. I was actually toying with disconnecting the sounder when I went broadband and that modem was history.

Confession: I still have it, a 56K Origo branded thing, Because Keeps(tm).

I was actually able to create a working dialup connection a couple of years ago since my ISP still supports it and try it out. At a glorious 44Kbps, the connection was so slow that most sites just timed out, some with something half rendered and others with nothing at all. Google.com just about worked, but of course, searching choked it with the results data. It would have been interesting to try NerdZone out, but the domain wasn't even registered then, let alone a website created.

Interesting to see how in the 20 years since I've had broadband, dialup has gone from being a royal PITA to completely unuseable. Seriously, I just wouldn't bother, even as an emergency connection.
Programmers got lazier and websites got fatter.
 
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