Back in the modem days, I tapped into the pins between my modem and computer’s serial port and put a speaker between RX and GND, with a switch of course so I co

Back in the modem days, I tapped into the pins between my modem and computer’s serial port and put a speaker between RX and GND, with a switch of course so I could turn it on and off. When on, it would make data noises at a reasonable volume indicating the current bandwidth usage. If a download got stalled, it was obvious even if I didn’t have that window in the foreground, or wasn’t even sitting at the computer. Also, different kinds of data had different sounds and cadences, and I got used to many of them. It was fun to hear an email coming in before my sound card officially announced it.