Somehow, against all odds (read: me not wanting to get old), the PlayStation is now 30. That means its startup noise, which eternally rings in the minds of people of A Certain Age like our own personal Big Ben, is also getting up there in years. And yet, today I learned something new about it. Well, new to me.
According to this video from YouTuber Nitrocosm (brought to my attention by Aftermath pal and freelance contributor Janus Rose), the PS1 startup noise is not one sound, but three. On top of that, they’re stored directly in the PS1’s BIOS – firmware that contains basic software for booting the console and running games – which explains why they’re chopped up and individually modified instead of lumped together into a single file: The BIOS is just 512 kilobytes. Today’s vast audio libraries would make it melt like the mind of a Victorian peasant experiencing a single crumb of Dorito dust.
The three audio samples are: 1) a chime, 2) a synth sound with a phaser effect on it, and 3) a reverse tape sound effect. These, according to Nitrocosm, are played at different speeds and mixed together to create the final product. If you want to hear the original sounds in all their individual glory, you can watch the video.
This is, I imagine, a far cry from how the sound effect is generated on the PlayStation 5, which just added a nostalgia-laden startup sequence to celebrate the 30-year anniversary. But I’ll never get tired of appreciating instances in which constraints bred creativity and limitations led to something that stuck with us for decades. We must, if nothing else, respect the old ways. We wouldn’t be here without them.
