Before Wi-Fi blanketed our lives and smartphones kept us online 24/7, the patient, scratchy sound of AOL’s dial-up connection served as the gateway to the internet for its first explorers. Next month,

The ear-piercing beeps, squeals and buzzes of 90s-era dial-up internet will vanish from thousands of holdout American homes in September as historic provider AOL shuts down the service. The raucous sounds of modems establishing their connection to distant servers marked a generation of internet users and still pop up in memes to this day.