[HN Gopher] Elwood Edwards, voice of AOL's 'you've got mail' ale...
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Elwood Edwards, voice of AOL's 'you've got mail' alert, has died
Author : tysone
Score : 133 points
Date : 2024-11-08 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| jgrahamc wrote:
| For a while it was possible to pay Elwood Edwards to record a
| short message (https://web.archive.org/web/20080613203307/http://
| www.makinw...). In 2002, I had him record "Mail classified by
| POPFile" for my POPFile machine learning email classifier
| (https://getpopfile.org).
|
| You can listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-
| cumming/mail-classified-b...
|
| I paid $30 for that. And him saying "Use the source, Luke!"
| dionian wrote:
| hes got a great voice! thanks for sharing
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Ooh. I found the original email from him.
| From: VoicePro@aol.com Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002
| 22:16:04 -0500 Subject: Your files :)
| Hi, John. Thanks for your order. Here are your
| files... and I included a "You've got mail, John"
| file, too. Enjoy!! El Edwards
|
| So, now I can upload "Use the source, Luke!"
| (https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-cumming/use-the-source-
| lu...) and "You've got mail, John!"
| (https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-cumming/youve-got-mail-
| jo...).
| atonse wrote:
| What a cool piece of internet history. (And awesome that he
| was a good sport)
|
| JGC, you seem to be one of those people that always has a
| finger in many little internet trivia things.
|
| I'd be bold to say, almost like a Forrest Gump of the
| internet.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| I just have a high-degree of curiosity and a tendency to
| email random people and see if they'll respond. And I got
| on the Internet in 1986 so I've been around a while.
|
| Fun story about that. Back in 1996 Nicholas Negroponte
| wrote a column in Wired lamenting the fact that laptop
| batteries didn't show their charge state. This mattered
| because all of us who travelled a lot carried multiple
| batteries to switch them in our laptops (some laptops
| could have two batteries at once allowing hot swapping
| without a shutdown). See:
| https://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED4-12.html:
| " _I now carry eight to ten battery packs during long
| trips. I won 't even consider a laptop design that
| includes unstackable batteries. The fact that most
| batteries don't indicate their charge state is
| pathetic._"
|
| I emailed Negroponte with my solution: before a trip I'd
| charge all my batteries up (I think I had five) and I had
| numbered them by writing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on them with a
| sharpie. Then, I'd simply use them in numerical order. He
| graciously replied something along the lines of
| "Sometimes the best solution is the simplest".
| AznHisoka wrote:
| I miss those days when you could email someone
| serendipitously and expect a response. Now its all filled
| with spam and nobody responds to anything
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Maybe. I emailed this guy and it went well:
| https://blog.jgc.org/2024/09/cracking-old-zip-file-to-
| help-o...
| dotancohen wrote:
| RMS would reply to most on topic emails, I think I
| emailed him just a few years ago and got a reply. And in
| place of email, some people have had similar success with
| Twitter. Tim Dodd comes to mind, his Twitter
| communications with Elon Musk, always on topic and well
| researched, helped propel his career.
| smm11 wrote:
| I emailed a suggestion to, and received a response from
| Steve Jobs in the late-90s. Didn't think a thing about
| it, changed jobs a time or two, business I was at closed.
| Yeah.
| NetOpWibby wrote:
| This is beautiful. I wish I knew this eons ago!
| sixothree wrote:
| Ok. I'm glad I clicked those. I know it's his voice. But still
| worth hearing.
| asveikau wrote:
| His voice sounds a bit higher pitched than the famous 90s
| recordings. I wonder if that's a product of the original
| recording equipment or format used to store it, or something
| like that.
| dogsgobork wrote:
| Goodbye!
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast had a episode featuring Mr.
| Edwards: https://www.20k.org/episodes/youvegotmail
| kristopolous wrote:
| He was paid piecemeal for the recordings.
|
| He drove for Uber later in life. Here's a video on it from Inside
| Edition:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sN67w6y1uig
| bsimpson wrote:
| > Just to clarify, I initially received $200 for doing the AOL
| phrases. Perhaps in my attempts to preserve confidentially, I
| have given the impression that AOL is cheap..but that is not
| the case! will only state that my relationship with AOL through
| the years has been satisfying and rewarding. File's
| done...Goodbye:)
| jervant wrote:
| A final "{S goodbye"
| LorenDB wrote:
| https://archive.ph/bxiFP
| devmor wrote:
| Goodbye!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| We used the same voice in GE's BusinessTalk system. I think BT
| and AOL shared a codebase. Not sure which was first.
| classichasclass wrote:
| Pretty sure it was BT and AppleLink (disclosure: my article):
| https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2024/03/an-apple-district-manage...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yes. We actually ran AppleLink.
|
| I just remember that we had exactly the same "You've got
| mail!"thing.
|
| Our UI was also almost identical.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| love that The Simpsons actually tracked him down to do the
| "You've Got Leprosy" line. Dedication to the authenticity.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| If the early internet had a voice it was definitely his, "You got
| mail!" is iconic.
|
| I'm a sad panda hearing that he passed. Rest in peace, and thank
| you.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| In America maybe :). I only know it from the movie.
|
| Ps wasn't he the same guy that did the "Welcome to Noviephone,
| brought to you by the New York Times!" Thing? I always called
| that to test if international calls were working :)
| nickdothutton wrote:
| When emails were infrequent enough that you'd only hear this a
| few times per day. I feel like setting it up now just to see how
| irritating it is. RIP EE.
| eth0up wrote:
| When I was a kid, using AOL with all my friends, I spent a few
| hours in Soundforge editing a clip of me saying "worms" as close
| to the AOL tone as possible. I did it pretty convincingly and
| began distributing the "You've got worms!" notification
| everywhere I could.
|
| Anyone under 100 will probably think this was really stupid, but
| it was amusing to me - and all the other silly hacks on windows
| and such.
| dtjohnnymonkey wrote:
| If I'm running a command in the background, and want to be
| notified when it's done, I usually run it like
| cmd; say 'files done'
|
| I wish I could use his voice though! These were sounds of my
| childhood.
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(page generated 2024-11-08 23:01 UTC)