A novelty M.2 card from Japan can give your modern PC the startup sound of a vintage NEC PC-9801.
Computers used to be a lot noisier than they are today. And I don’t just mean the whir of spinning hard disks and the rattle of fans—they used to boop and beep every time you turned them on.
If you miss the chimes of classic PC hardware but aren’t willing to switch to a machine that gets fewer than 1,000 frames per second in Doom, then this M.2 trinket might be for you.
Japanese online shop Kadenken is selling an M.2 module with an integrated speaker that emits the distinctive beep-boops of an NEC PC-9800 series, which was first sold in Japan in 1982.
NEC shipped more than 18 million units over its 20-year lifespan, and some of the same hardware was sold internationally as the APC series. So, it’s easy to see why someone might feel a little nostalgic about these classic boot-up sounds.
Tom’s Hardware spotted the gadget, which comes in a 2280 format (80mm long) but can be cut down to 30mm if necessary to fit into laptops or smaller devices like the Steam Deck. Not that you should install it in a Steam Deck, of course, because in order to use this you’ll need a free M.2 slot. (Unless this sweet beep-boop noise is more important than having an operating system or a Wi-Fi card, I suppose.)
The speaker module also makes it a few millimeters taller than a standard M.2 card, though desktop motherboards won’t be bothered by the extra clearance. It triggers the beep using the PCIe bus reset signal, so it should work on pretty much any computer upon initial boot or reset.
The low-volume device is being sold for 2,880 yen (about $18 USD). You’ll probably spend more than that on shipping and import fees if you want to get your hands on it outside of Japan, though.
