HACKER Q&A
📣 marcodiego

What is the best OS startup/bootup sound ever?


I think nothing comes close to windows 95 startup sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miZHa7ZC6Z0 It was good to hear it. Considering stability of the systems of those days, listening this means that the machine was able to boot and in good enough health to load and play the startup sound.

SGI Indy bootup may sound cool but probably annoying after the first few times you hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH9saUP2460

Another I find cool is this one from apple: https://youtu.be/d8szceStqZI?t=37

  👤 d26900 Accepted Answer ✓
I really like the PlayStation 1's from Takafumi Fujisawa[1] (藤澤孝史)[2]:

https://youtu.be/Jwln1ai_DYU

- "The function of this sound is to tell the user that the hardware is running like it is supposed to, and that the disc has successfully been read. To add, the swooshing reverse sound is designed so that it can go into loop if the disc couldn’t be read, and we can understand if something went wrong."

- "I thought of the structure, selected the tones, and gathered the instruments in 2 weeks, and the studio work was done essentially in 2 days. I kept thinking from the start that I wanted the sound image to be something exciting, like that feeling when you walk into a cinema. I really wanted to communicate and reinforce that something fun is going to happen."

References:

[1] https://blog.playstation.com/archive/2019/12/05/how-sound-de...

[2] https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,5...

👤 dTal
To me it's a toss-up between Windows 98:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tajDxBaPBBM

...and Classic Mac:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ1mpI01evk

The Windows sound doesn't play until after a very long, grinding boot sequence with an ambiguous moment of completion, so its slow, grand crescendo is a fitting indicator that the show has now begun. The Mac sound by contrast is played the instant you push the power button, and correspondingly it has a satisfyingly immediate beginning; its single richly textured chord seems to want to convey that pushing that button was the correct decision, and your day can only get better now that your Mac(tm) is powered up.

👤 DataCrayon
Dreamcast one for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gskHksi2Yc

Gamecube next https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpmYW-gCSy4

Most the game consoles have a nice startup... an arrangement of all of them is nice too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLq_P0K4jvA

👤 magikaram
The best sound that I reminisce was the PlayStation 2 startup[0]. The sound was oddly terrifying as a child, and you booted it up in the dark. But I guess the nostalgia makes me miss it.

In addition, Windows XP and Windows 7 were the two most familiar Operating Systems that I used, and their startups probably are the most pleasing to my ears. [1][2]

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZet5jQmY1o

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nQ2oiVqKHw

[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=095XUlKnQSY

👤 rvz
The original PlayStation 3 boot sound [0] gives the feel of a very polished premium games console and is derived from an orchestra tuning session. [1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9rXIOeI3o

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfSH1ezevjM

👤 cristiansosa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nQ2oiVqKHw

It reminds me of my good ("old") days on the computer.

👤 softwaredoug
My first computer experiences were early Apples and Macs. So I still get chills when my Mac boots up. It’s like I’m back in the computer lab and I’m about to play in Kidpix or something ;)
👤 codegeek
Nothing beats the sound of ICQ messenger for me (hello late 90s early 2000s).
👤 p5gamemath
How about no sound? It scared me when Apple brought back the macOS startup sound lol.
👤 Lapsa
tada