Never thought those old Nokia ringtone files would still work on modern phones

I was clearing out a drawer last week and found my old Nokia 3310. Out of curiosity, I Googled how to pull the MIDI ringtone files off it. Ended up emailing one to myself and now it's my text alert on my iPhone. Has anyone else messed around with converting old phone sounds to use today?

3 comments

3 Comments

michael_green441mo ago

Hang on, you emailed a MIDI file to yourself from a 3310? That alone seems like magic to me. Those old phones didn't have Bluetooth or anything like that, so I'm impressed you even got the file off it. Did you have to use some special cable or software to pull it?

sagecooper1mo ago

Yeah, those serial cables were a pain. I still have a box of random Nokia cables in my closet somewhere.

aaronsullivan1mo ago

@michael_green44 Nah you're right, it wasn't exactly smooth. I had to use a specific data cable that plugged into the bottom of the phone, one of those old serial connectors. Then I used some free software called MobiMB or something like that, it let me browse the phone's file system over that cable connection. I could see the MIDI files sitting in the "tones" folder, just like any other folder on a computer. Had to drag the file from the phone's directory to my desktop, then manually attach it to an email. It was clunky, took maybe ten minutes of fiddling, but it worked. No Bluetooth or infrared on that phone, just a cable and some patience.