http://www.windytan.com/2012/11/the-sound-of-dialup-pictured.html absorptions a blog about signals, random hacks, & assorted infodumps. by windytan [oona raisanen] Pages * home * list of posts * about & FAQ * my nerd story * infographics # The sound of the dialup, pictured by Oona Raisanen (Oona Raisanen) Saturday, November 17, 2012 If you ever connected to the Internet before the 2000s, you probably remember that it made a peculiar sound. But despite becoming so familiar, it remained a mystery for most of us. What do these sounds mean? [HTML5 audio: In-line recording of the beginning of a telephone call made by a modem.] (The audio was recorded by William Termini on his iMac G3.) As many already know, what you're hearing is often called a handshake, the start of a telephone conversation between two modems. The modems are trying to find a common language and determine the weaknesses of the telephone channel originally meant for human speech. Below is a spectrogram of the handshake audio. I've labeled some signals according to which party transmitted them, and also put a concise explanation below. [Image: A large infographic detailing the phases of the dialup handshake, centered on a time-frequency-power representation (spectrogram).] (You can order this poster as a high-res print via Redbubble!) Hello, is this a modem? The first thing we hear in this example is a dial tone, the same tone you would hear when picking up your landline phone. The modem now knows it's connected to a phone line and can dial a number. The number is signaled to the network using Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency signaling, or DTMF, the same sounds a telephone makes when dialing a number. The remote modem answers with a distinct tone that our calling modem can recognize. They then exchange short bursts of binary data to assess what kind of protocol is appropriate. This is called a V.8 bis transaction. Suppressing echoes Now the modems must address the problem of echo suppression. When humans talk, only one of them is usually talking while the other one listens. The telephone network exploits this fact and temporarily silences the return channel to suppress any confusing echoes of the talker's own voice. Modems don't like this at all, as they can very well talk at the same time (it's called full-duplex). The answering modem now puts on a special answer tone that will disable any echo suppression circuits on the line. The tone also has periodic "snaps" (180deg phase transitions) that aim to disable yet another type of circuit called echo canceller. Finding a suitable modulation Now the modems will list their supported modulation modes and try to find one that both know. They also probe the line with test tones to see how it responds to tones of different frequencies, and how much it attenuates the signal. They exchange their test results and decide a speed that is suitable for the line. Enough small talk! After this, the modems will go to scrambled data. They put their data through a special scrambling formula before transmission to make its power distribution more even and to make sure there are no patterns that are suboptimal for transfer. They listen to each other sending a series of binary 1's and adjust their equalizers to optimally shape the incoming signal. Soon after this, the modem speaker will go silent and data can be put through the connection. But why? Why was it audible? Why not, one could ask. Back in the days, telephone lines were used for audio. The first modems even used the telephone receiver like humans do, by talking into the mouthpiece, until newer modems were developed that could directly connect into the phone line. Even then, the idea of not hearing what's happening on a phone line you're calling on was quite new, and modems would default to exposing the user to the handshake audio. And in case you accidentally called a human, you would still have time to pick up the telephone and explain the situation. All you had to do to silence the handshake was to send the command ATM0 down the serial line before dialing. UPDATE 02/2013: Due to numerous requests, I made this into a 42-megapixel poster that Redbubble is selling. Some $4 per poster is directed to the poor nerd who made this. Labels: infodump, signals - Newer Post Older Post - 81 comments: 1. [blogger_lo] Steve Ruiz30 January, 2013 16:25 Thank you for illuminating one of the mysteries of my past. Very interesting stuff. ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen30 January, 2013 18:03 You're welcome! Thanks for reading! Delete Replies Reply 2. [blank] Anonymous01 February, 2013 14:10 Thank you for this amazing amount of effort to explain that handshake sequence! I can't say it's been keeping me up at night, but the detailed diagram showing each part of the handshake sequence is beautiful! Delete Replies Reply 3. [blank] Anonymous04 February, 2013 12:52 It's so odd... I used to hate this sound when I got my first PC. I used to try and find ways to either turn it down or turn it off altogether... of course, you couldn't. Not really. But as time went on, I got used to it. Kind of like when you sign on to your computer and the OS greets you with a noise or a song. It was like the Pavlov's Dogs, and I got used to listening for those sounds. You could actually tell if your connection was going to be good or bad (ie, none at all) by the way the sound was modulating. That sound, to me, is like the sound of an old school typewriter. It's primitive, it's annoying, but I do so miss that kind of feed-back in the here and now! Classic stuff. Delete Replies Reply 4. [blogger_lo] Unknown05 June, 2016 14:30 Its quite fun, because the mother of our now (and one not longer a teenager) could hear from the handshake tones who was dialing in. It was a serious distinct handshake. And since I used a USR Courier v.everything and most dialers used Supra and other modems, it was quite easy to hear who connected. The (in the last days of dial up) USR Sportster 14400 could easily be upgraded to 28800bps. But it took the black Sportster to cope to "56k". (v.fast and k56flex). Also the USR Courier V.everything had a set of unpublished commands to measure the line quality. Found them when doing a backup. ATYnn is undocumented. Spectral analysis of line quality. Delete Replies Reply 5. [blogger_lo] scaper803 October, 2017 18:39 Jason George, I understand what you mean. Personally, I never found it grating from the start, rather mysterious and transcendent. Like the language of the gods. But I do certainly know the feeling of anticipation in hearing it. A little sad that will never know that sound (or a typewriter or even a desktop keyboard) anymore. Makes me a good bit wistful. Delete Replies Reply Reply 2. [blank] Anonymous30 January, 2013 16:36 You make modems sound so polite. Please this, please that. ;) ReplyDelete Replies Reply 3. [blank] Anonymous30 January, 2013 17:38 I'm going to have to start hard coding please and thank you into my software from now on... ReplyDelete Replies Reply 4. [blank] Anonymous30 January, 2013 18:09 A walk down tech memory lane... this time with a guide :) Thanks for this smile. ReplyDelete Replies Reply 5. [msimmons] Matt30 January, 2013 18:15 So, would you like to sell a poster of that? Because I'd like to buy it. ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Unknown30 January, 2013 23:43 I would also be interested. Delete Replies Reply 2. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen03 February, 2013 17:47 RedBubble is selling it now. Delete Replies Reply Reply 6. [meetup] Tim30 January, 2013 19:02 So interesting! Thanks for the insight into this forgotten part of the Internet! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 7. [blank] Anonymous30 January, 2013 20:15 Beautiful. Absolutely, fantastically, nostalgically beautiful! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 8. [blogger_lo] Unknown30 January, 2013 20:20 Thanks for this article, I really enjoyed it and the accompanying image! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 9. [blogger_lo] Unknown30 January, 2013 23:41 What program did you use to generate the spectrogram? ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen30 January, 2013 23:58 Baudline by SigBlips. Also Gimp and other image postprocessing. Delete Replies Reply 2. [spectro438] baudline02 February, 2013 02:19 I thought I recognized that particular shade of baudline-green. (: What an awesome signal analysis job you have done. You broke it down, demodulated parts, decoded bits, and understood a crazy handshake protocol. It must of been a lot of work. I am beyond impressed. Wow! Delete Replies Reply 3. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen04 February, 2013 23:14 Thank you! It was a fascinating journey indeed. Delete Replies Reply Reply 10. [blank] adam j. sontag31 January, 2013 04:28 Thanks for making this. I really enjoyed being able to match the "names to faces," so to speak. I made a simple jsbin version of the spectrograph with a "playhead" overlaid so you can see what is being played when, and click around as well. http://jsbin.com/ amunug/17 ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blank] Anonymous02 February, 2013 02:54 Very cool mashup, just what I was hoping for! Thanks for sharing! Delete Replies Reply Reply 11. [blogger_lo] Steven Huang31 January, 2013 07:04 Modem A: hey babe, you dtmf? Modem B: u know it Modem A: what u up 4 2nite? wanna v.8? Modem B: i wanna ack u like my daddy net2phone use 2 ack me Modem A: um ok... v.8 then Modem B: lol jk, u comin? Modem A: brt just gotta turn off echo suppressors n cancellers Modem B: ok i wait Modem B: my pcm is so modulated Modem A: lol rly? u think u can handle V.90/V.92? Modem B: D/A? Modem A: ...D? Modem B: wtf no, im not into that Modem A: lol jk we can do V.42 LAPM if u want im down 4 nething Modem A: up to 3429 o/c Modem A: u know i give as good as i get, ne way u want it, loud or soft, high or low, fast or slow, i got all the time in the world 4 u babe, my clock source is internal Modem B: of course no 3429. and same 4 me. except i might lose track of time, lol Modem B: and honey if u with me we gon be makin sum NOISE Modem B: 6db at LEAST u know how i like it Modem A: lol i hear ya, 3200 all nite long, the way u get me goin maybe we even go 2 4800 lol Modem A: set ur pre-emphasis filter params n put on that 1920 hz carrier frequency i got u Modem A: im here baby [SCRAMBLED] -ultimat142 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/17jwoi/ dialup_handshake_explained/c86evsf ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen31 January, 2013 07:35 This is golden. Delete Replies Reply Reply 12. [blogger_lo] Unknown31 January, 2013 09:12 Very cool! I'm wondering, did you just look up the conversation data or did you use something to sniff the data off of the modem line? ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen31 January, 2013 09:20 I wrote a few Perl scripts to demodulate the FSK and DPSK, then manually decoded the bits based on the relevant ITU-T standards. Delete Replies Reply 2. [blank] Anonymous31 January, 2013 22:19 Great work! Can I trade my brain for yours? ( It's only very slightly used ) Delete Replies Reply 3. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen01 February, 2013 08:55 My brain isn't that great :D Delete Replies Reply Reply 13. [blogger_lo] DavidDawesFXA31 January, 2013 14:58 Very nice work! Takes me back to the 90s when I first started using dialup :-) ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Zach31 January, 2013 23:06 Takes me back to the mid-80s when I could distinguish connect speed by ear (at least 1200, 2400, and 9600). Ahh, the days of listening to Telemate auto-redial the busy BBS number. ;-) Thank goodness we no longer need to worry about line noi230t9uc!%!f3333 NO CARRIER Delete Replies Reply Reply 14. [blogger_lo] BKR31 January, 2013 18:47 Awesome. I remember working phone support in the 90's for dialup internet users. I would sometimes have people hold their phone up to the modem so I could listen to the handshake, but I never knew exactly what the various parts were for. Thanks! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 15. [blank] Anonymous01 February, 2013 00:15 Hi, great! Thanks for sharing this. What about doing something similar for DSL line handshaking: "The ITU-T has recently standardized a handshake and activation method for xDSL modems. This method is contained in the ITU-T Recommendation G.944.1 (formerly known as G.hs). Several of the features of G.994.1 came from the voiceband handshake Recommendations V.8 and V.8bis," ReplyDelete Replies Reply 16. [blank] Anonymous01 February, 2013 05:59 Thank you Oona from a mother of an Ouma - that was fun to read ReplyDelete Replies Reply 17. [blogger_lo] Unknown01 February, 2013 08:31 This sounds like US signaling. We had totally different in Europe and former USSR. ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen01 February, 2013 08:43 It is indeed a U.S. dialtone. Delete Replies Reply Reply 18. [blogger_lo] Luc01 February, 2013 16:23 Thanks for making me feel old... ReplyDelete Replies Reply 19. [blogger_lo] Funkytone01 February, 2013 20:25 Thanks for such a nostalgic read! I think I just played the sound clip about 20 times. I would love to print a large format poster of the spectrogram with all your notes and put it up in my office. Would you mind sending me a high-res version that would print really clear? A vector version if you have it is best? Thanks in advance! Tony ReplyDelete Replies Reply 20. [blogger_lo] Unknown02 February, 2013 01:28 Dear Oona Raisanen your lastname must sound a bit like the krrrBliipkrraaa sounds of my good old modem of mine carefully chucked in a box in the cellar. But what an interesting and great article ! thank you ! Edualc ReplyDelete Replies Reply 21. [blogger_lo] Longshiren02 February, 2013 20:23 Thank you, Oona. This brought back fond memories. My first modem use was in 1979 with 300 Bps and then in 1981 with 1200 Bps. In the late 1980s I used a 2400 Bps modem for the first time and loved it. The move to actual Kbps speeds and then digital modems, and then routers were all just normal parts of an evolving network. But I realized I missed the modems' sounds and control/handshake sequences, which allowed an engineer to more closely follow and understand the data transmission process. We've coma a long way, and we should capture this kind of thing to remind us of the journey. Again, immense thanks. ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen03 February, 2013 21:49 My pleasure! Delete Replies Reply Reply 22. [blank] Anonymous04 February, 2013 23:04 I remember when I got my first 2400 baud modem @ an amiga show in NY, it was between that or a digiview video digitizer. Best purchase I ever made. I also remember when my friend bought a 14.4 baud modem, those days it was crazy fast! ah the memories BBSing late into the night, of board games and war games dialers.. those were the days.. ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen06 February, 2013 15:06 Yeah, 33.6 was a superhighway compared to 2.4. I couldn't have imagined text flowing so fast. Delete Replies Reply Reply 23. [blank] Anonymous12 February, 2013 00:29 Terrific! The infographic is great - those conversation 'balloons' really help to understand what's happening. Thank you! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 24. [] Bart12 February, 2013 05:12 I have created a moving-pictures version of the above here: http://youtu.be/qEPIoyYB8hc Thanks for the inspiration. ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen12 February, 2013 10:20 Great! Also there's this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= dSxgCVc6wcM Delete Replies Reply Reply 25. [blogger_lo] Unknown21 February, 2013 07:25 Found this from a post on imgur. I actually use this same sound clip as my morning alarm haha. I alaways wanted to know what it all meant. Thanks formaking this. :) ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen21 February, 2013 07:37 Imgurians unite! Delete Replies Reply Reply 26. [blogger_lo] Anon_7701 April, 2013 16:11 Just read about this on HAD, really interesting stuff. I actually have this as my ringtone. Leads to a few strange looks but also gets some smiles from the people old enough to remember dialup internet. :) . I really wish there were a lot more girl geeks out there. Thank-you for a really enjoyable read. :) Jon W ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen26 April, 2013 21:08 Thanks for reading! I also had it as a ringtone for some time, gave me some true old-skool street cred. Delete Replies Reply Reply 27. [blogger_lo] Unknown26 April, 2013 20:12 This is a really good read for me. I just found your website a few days ago and I have been reading through it regularly. Thanks a lot for enjoying this beauty blog with me ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen26 April, 2013 21:05 Thank you, made me happy! Delete Replies Reply Reply 28. [blogger_lo] Silver10 August, 2013 20:44 Thank you for a great post! I remember the moment that my boyfriend and I learned that acoustically coupled 300 baud modems can't parse the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It did try! Screen after screen of garbage! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 29. [blogger_lo] quantumdude13 October, 2013 18:58 I think there's a few issues with the labelling (as far as which is sent by the calling modem and which by the answering modem). In the V.8bis transaction CL is sent from the answering modem, NOT the calling modem (so the MS and ACK(1) packets are sent by the other modem as well). Also, it seems as if the phase 2 labelling was referenced from the V.34 standard (which V.90/92 is based on). However, in V.90, these "roles" are often reversed (based on which modem is analog and which is digital) - this can be verified as to which wide-spectrum probing signal is "sharper" (because it's the one being sent by the calling modem). Don't get me wrong, I love this post - it's inspired me to learn all the different V-series standards and try to build my own dialup modem! ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen14 October, 2013 11:23 Cool, thanks for actually taking the time and reviewing this! :) I've been wondering why no-one has pointed out any mistakes. Maybe I should make a bugfix version in the future. Delete Replies Reply 2. [blogger_lo] quantumdude14 October, 2013 11:26 No problem :) (also, I noticed that the very last chunk of noise is actually an Sd to Sd-bar to TRN1d since the digital modem doesn't use QAM, but that's probably a minor point anyway, considering it's all visually uninteresting noise :P) Delete Replies Reply Reply 30. [Jo] Hermes Serrano12 November, 2013 15:34 Hi Oona, You are awsome ! Thanks a lot for enlighting us! Kind Regards from Barcelona, Spain. ReplyDelete Replies Reply 31. [blank] Anonymous13 November, 2013 17:55 I have to say that this has got to be the most detailed discretion of modem handshaking that I've ever seen. Thank you for making this pic, so cool!! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 32. [blank] Minerva24 November, 2013 17:13 You have an awesome blog! This post really gave me the fuzzies - I remembered the days of dialing into BBS's with my brand new 14k bps modem. Never realized that what sounded to me like random beeps and fizzes was actually my modem having a civilized conversation! Thanks! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 33. [blogger_lo] Unknown02 February, 2014 18:12 I still hear this sound in my dreams. I remember I could tell the connection speed after hearing the handshake. Travelled all over the world from home, (BBB=Bergen-by-Byte, anyone?), and it ended up as my iPhone ringtone at some point. Thank you for the remembrance! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 34. [blogger_lo] Unknown10 July, 2014 03:52 I remember calling my friend's house to play some Doom. His mother would always pick up the phone and I'd listen to them argue over the sound of a lonely handshake attempt. Thanks for the memories and great info. ReplyDelete Replies Reply 35. [blank] Anonymous26 January, 2015 14:25 Wow! In 30 years of using computers, I've never seen an article on modems as beautifully written as this! Many thanks for educating us. ReplyDelete Replies Reply 36. [blogger_lo] ECBAleixo09 March, 2015 20:58 Thanks Oona Raisanen! Beautifull & inspiring work ReplyDelete Replies Reply 37. [blogger_lo] El quinto Istari10 March, 2015 19:34 Oonaa: Can you believe that in Cuba, we still use Modem to acces Internet (at best), Intranet, and local e-mail servers !! This sound you described and explained brilliantly it is still (2015) a sound that millions of people in Cuba long to hear @ home. Cuba have one of the lowers internet penetration index (http:// www.internetworldstats.com/carib.htm#cu). The mean download velocity is 1,28 Mbps. Unfortunately, this sound is not part of our latest technological history :( ReplyDelete Replies Reply 38. [blogger_lo] Unknown25 July, 2015 10:57 OK, I just had a flashback. Wasn't there a version of the handshake that did a 'bong' twice? Was that a USRobotics version? ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] quantumdude12 August, 2015 15:11 That 2x 'bong' is the DIL signal of V.90, which is a more-or-less modem-specific signal. But yes, I believe it's the USRobotics version. Delete Replies Reply Reply 39. [blank] Anonymous23 August, 2015 02:53 These are amazing memories from very good old times. Very interesting article about the handshake modem sound. Thanks for sharing!!! ^_^ ReplyDelete Replies Reply 40. [blogger_lo] Rocky Lien21 March, 2016 16:00 This is a long time coming: thank you for the scientific and artistic work you put into this. I bought a copy of the poster about a year ago and just recently completed the project I imagined when I first saw this post. I cut a larger poster frame to size and mounted the poster. Then, using a greeting card sound module (happy mistake choosing that! More on this in a moment) recorded the sound directly from the link in the article above. When I first listened to the sound clip, something sounded off. After recording it on the sound module and listening to it via the cheap speaker, I realized that the sound quality from my computer speakers gave that familiar old sound an unnatural quality. The sound module more or less recreated the quality of sound that came from the modem speaker. Sound module source: http://bigdawgspromo.com/ push-button-prerecorded.html Here's a link to a video of my final result. My phone kept focusing on the reflection of my kids' artwork on the next wall! https://goo.gl/photos/gbxAb9gsmCbGkTzf9 With either a bigger budget or greater artistic talent, I'm sure a more impressive result could be found but this is what I ended up with and I'm happy to have it on my wall. Thank you, Oona, for your contribution and sparking the thought of doing this! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 41. [blank] Keith Monahan13 July, 2016 23:55 From reddit, Fantastic analysis of this! I've heard of people hating this sound, but it's always been beautiful to me. I grew up with simple 300 baud initially, just simple FSK. To hear things progress, and as better/more efficient modulations came out as time went on, this was literally music to my ears. I always had my modem audio on for the handshake. The better modems even had a volume slider. For the WHY portion, you're probably not going far enough in what you said. Since many times, when calling BBSs and services (like Compuserve, Delphi, or Prodigy), you were often calling blindly. You got the number somewhere, but mistakes were common, BBS numbers were mixed with fax numbers, and voice numbers. I used to hear voices or fax tones (which are easily distinguishable from straight-modems) and you'd know something went wrong. Otherwise, you're just waiting about 30-45 seconds for a "Connect 1200" or other similar message to appear. It's boring, so why not listen to the handshake in case something cropped up. Also, you learned to "troubleshoot" the modem connection. Sometimes, due to poor quality phone lines, you could hear it "refuse" the faster connection rates, and the extra long training phase you knew it was going to be slow. That's useful information! Great job, again. From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, keith at techtravels.org ReplyDelete Replies Reply 42. [blogger_lo] Oli White16 October, 2016 02:10 Found your vid on youtube while trying to teach a youngster about what DUN is. Came across this website in the comments and very happy! Definite bookmarking and sharing material! ReplyDelete Replies Reply 43. [zidsig2] Zidders Roofurry17 February, 2017 00:44 My super-eggheady friend once knew someone who could complete a handshake via whistling. ReplyDelete Replies Reply 44. [blank] Anonymous10 March, 2017 12:45 Great stuff! Question, V.32-modems or for instance V.34-modems were using carrier frequencies like 1800 Hz or so for sending the data. Why is it we're not seeing and hearing this carrier frequency when the modems are sending and receiving data after closure of the handshake-procedure, but just a lot of noise in every frequency band between 0 - 4 kHz? ReplyDelete Replies 1. [avatar_sma] quantumdude11 March, 2017 15:28 In a way, you are hearing just the carrier, but its amplitude and phase are varying so much so fast that it creates other frequencies around the carrier. This is due to mathematical properties of sines. The appearance of noise is just our inability to track the modulation at such a high speed. Delete Replies Reply Reply 45. [blogger_lo] Iogarchi31 March, 2017 20:59 Thank you so much for share the picture and your explanation about the language of the modems I used once before. I always wanted to know about it. Thank you. ReplyDelete Replies Reply 46. [blank] Marcel08 July, 2018 17:38 Why do they include quality information about 3429, if neither supports it? Or am I misunderstanding anything? ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] Oona Raisanen09 July, 2018 15:55 Hi, if I remember correctly the list of symbol rates is always the same length, independent of what the parties claim to support, for the sake of simplicity in the protocol. No additional logic is needed to determine how many bits should be read from that field. Delete Replies Reply Reply 47. [blank] Anonymous25 January, 2019 02:51 What is the allowable delay time from connection to the initial V.8 bis transaction? I see it is almost instantaneous in your example. What if the delay is 11 seconds or more before the answering modem starts the V.8? Can this be configured? ReplyDelete Replies Reply 48. [blogger_lo] Quentin Cranthorpe23 March, 2019 22:40 This is fascinating, thank you for sharing! How does this compare with DSL signalling, do those modems have a similar handshake? ReplyDelete Replies Reply 49. [blank] Anonymous22 July, 2019 11:40 I recall later modems producing a "boing boing" sound but it's not present in this recording. Do you know what that was? One Reddit post says it was part of the probing signal. ReplyDelete Replies 1. [blogger_lo] quantumdude23 July, 2019 01:12 If I understand what you're referring to, it's called Digital Impairment Learning, and is used by digital v.9x modems to check for things like robbed-bit signalling that could corrupt PCM samples (see https://goughlui.com/2016/05/03/ project-the-definitive-collection-of-v-90v-92-modem-sounds/). Delete Replies Reply 2. [blogger_lo] Unknown11 February, 2020 14:25 Yeah, it's a DIL, and actually I wanted to mention something about this. The audio is definitely a V.90 connection because of V.8bis handshake and the audio from the answering modem in the end, which I believe is a scrambled data in PCM. I mean, it's completely different from a TCM noise so it's definitely not a V.34 handshake. Regarding that, I would mention that the first wave sent by a client modem in Phase 3 is not just a scrambled data, but some other useful signals and most importantly - the DIL descriptor, called Ja in a V.90 protocol. The digital modem receives it, sends some other data (including some scrambled), and then, as soon as it receives a signal from client modem, it starts to play DIL sequence. Yeah, the trick is - this "bong bong" sound is not played by YOUR modem, but instead it's played by your ISP modem which is interesting. Also different modems have different DIL sequences which means different sounds. Delete Replies Reply Reply 50. [blank] Al Lowe10 May, 2020 09:45 Am I the only one who looked up the code to make the modem dial faster? (Was it S11?) Anyway, thanks for the memory trip! AL ReplyDelete Replies Reply 51. [blank] Anonymous20 July, 2020 09:02 Many thanks for this post, I always wondered what the tones meant! ReplyDelete Replies Reply Add comment Load more... The comments section is pre-moderated; it will take some time for the comment to show up. You might want to check out the FAQ first. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Author Oona Raisanen (windytan) A programmer, geek, signals enthusiast. I'm interested in radio, DSP, sounds, visualizations, mysteries, music and sound art, and vintage tech. Absorptions is my personal hobby diary. I write about my research and adventures in the world of signals, and fun things I do with the computer. See the FAQ. 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