strong believer that at some point we gotta invent a little doodad that goes in a computer and makes some unnecessary machine noises so it sounds like it's doing something
the "little buzzer that pretends to make floppy drive head seek noise" functionality I paid $5 to have added to my amiga's floppy drive emulator was worth twice the price
This is why every computer should still have an in-built speaker that programs can use as a standard sound device.
thinking about an old program called Nullsoft Beep that existed in the early-aughts. Its purpose was to "make a computer sound like it does in the movies" - in practice, this entails making the speakers hum quietly while the system is idle, and making them hum louder based on the level of CPU usage. It also injects "hyper auto beeps" any time there are large screen changes (windows appearing, for example) or inputs on the keyboard.
also thinking about the "Blinkenlights" on Be Inc.'s ill-fated BeBox computer:
This was a way to make the computer tell you, visually, how much of each of its two PowerPC CPUs was in use by whatever was running. Because this was an innate feature of the OS and underlying hardware, it did not require you to have any apps running in the background.
Or my personal favorite PC case mod, the Telecalculograph, which has a "furnace" on the front panel that glows more brightly with CPU activity, and flickers with disk activity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPO2JuqAl0M
Y'know? back in the day we had a hard disk activity light. I miss those. I like to see Signs Of Life in what I'm working with, even if the system is so busy it can't even update the "throbber" on the window. Bring that shit back.
