I use a pomodoro app that pings when time is up and ticks for the duration if sound is on. One constraint on frequent sound use is you can only really use them

I use a pomodoro app that pings when time is up and ticks for the duration if sound is on. One constraint on frequent sound use is you can only really use them in either a solo environment or with headphones without being antisocial; which is probably a contributory reason to it not being a significant presence in modern development. I suspect it was a more common thing in the beginnings of home computer use (80s onwards) when creating and controlling sound was immediately available from the command line before programming got abstracted away to a secondary level.