system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Eli5: why did dial up modems make so much noise?

Couldn't we just disconnect the speaker that's making so much noise?
gpt
We could, and we did once the connection had been established. You could disable the speaker for the dialling and connection process too, but hearing the noise could give you some information if the connection failed - did it fail to get a dial tone, did it get an engaged tone, did you input a wrong number and a human picked up?