Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2026 September 3

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September 3

I finally may have found the first phone with polyphonic ringtones!

ASTEL AJ-32

https://asteler.web.fc2.com/PS_3.htm

Can a japanese speaker please confirm?

Apparently it's from august 1999

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9D%80%E4%BF%A1%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AD%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3

I'm still not convinced to be honest...

pls no ban, i wanted closure but it took a while

Also, shoutout to the nokia 8877 & 8887 for maybe being the first phones to maybe ship with miniBAE (pls confirm as well) -xh-xe-xg- (talk) 12:25, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

The ASTEL AJ-32 was a PHS handset, not a cellular phone. I feel the original request implied you were interested in cellular phones. If you allow any hand-held, cordless phones, then we have to look at wireless phones as well. If you drop the requirement for it to be wireless, we have to look at wired phones - which brings right to the niche phones of the 1970s and 1980s. I personally think they were monophonic. They played songs, but one note at a time. It is possible one of them was polyphonic because, at that same time, there were four-note novelty car horns. Were they monophonic? I don't really know. But, the point is that the technology was advancing in the 1970s and 1980s, so by 1999 there could very well have been a non-PHS, non-cellular phone with polyphonic capability. My personal opinion is that it was a byproduct of the video game market, trying to get technology to play more complex sounds to attract more players. That technology spread to other devices. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 16:52, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. The Commodore 64's SID chip had three channels in 1982. Matt Deres (talk) 17:45, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Don't forget about the wonderful atari TIA, with two channels in 1977 -xh-xe-xg- (talk) 05:22, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

The old push button (DTMF) phones produces two distinct sine waves per key press. They were actually eight channels, but most of them could only activate two of the eight. Some could activate all eight at once. Regardless, they could all activate a minimum of two sine wave channels at the same time, producing the well-known two-frequency oscillation. ~2026-38520-51 (talk) 10:29, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Indeed i believe there were, multiple of them actually.

I had another source with a later phone. https://www.watch.impress.co.jp/mobile/column/catchup/1999/12/09/ (i believe this was it)

And this slightly later release https://www.watch.impress.co.jp/mobile/column/hidouki/1999/12/10/jsky.htm (somebody answered that the first one was likely to be this phone's direct succsesor, the J-SH03, this older one has polyphony as well, so it definitely isn't that newer one)

Maybe there were even car phones with that feature. -xh-xe-xg- (talk) 05:20, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Wait i confused myself it's the second link the J-SH02 one, i'm not that good at this... -xh-xe-xg- (talk) 05:26, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Four-note novelty car horns: (five, even) - yes, they were monophonic. They had an electric rotating valve which pumped air to each horn in turn. I think you could select the order, to get different tunes. MinorProphet (talk) 20:48, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Similarly, don't forget train horns. --~2026-48361-01 (talk) 00:06, 6 September 2026 (UTC)