beep command (or other "internal speaker" utility)?

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I've recently come to suspect that my internal speaker isn't working
(one software I use has "use internal speaker" as an option [it's
news/email software, and it's for indicating news/mail has arrived], and
that doesn't seem to work).

It's a netbook, so I'm pretty certain doesn't have a separate
speaker/sounder, but simulates one in software; the mixer that appears
when I right-click the tray speaker icon and choose Open Volume Control,
has a channel called PC Beep, so I think that's it. (And no, it isn't
set to minimum and its Mute box isn't ticked!)

I vaguely remember a "beep" command in DOS - I think it gave a default
beep, or you could give it parameters for frequency (or it might have
been period, i. e. inverse frequency) and duration. I've just tried it
in a command window, and it's not recognised, so either it'd been
dropped by the time XP came out, or it was never a standard command and
was some (DOS!) utility I had acquired.

Anyone know of anything - I envisage a tiny utility, GUI or DOS - that
would test whether the "speaker" (software in my case, I'm pretty sure)
is working? (Doesn't have to be an explicit test utility; something
that, say, played a series of notes from a file would be fine. [No, not
midi - that'd come through the conventional sound part.])

(And for that matter, where to look if it turns out not to be? Not
important, as I don't see needing it for anything, but just for
completeness; I don't like things not to be working.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.

[RoadRunnerLA]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 13:40:32 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote in
message: <bqu2oEGQ...@soft255.demon.co.uk>:

Typing CTRL + G from the command prompt in all
versions of Windows should produce a beep. If
that doesn't work, check out the troubleshooting
tips offered at this web site:

http://superuser.com/questions/227939/how-to-make-the-pc-speaker-beep-from-the-windows-7-command-prompt

>Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.

"At times, to fail in life is to succeed,
and to succeed is to fail."
--F. M. Isserman (1898-1972)

[mike]

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-CMD-Beep

[Paul]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

#include <stdio.h>

/* gcc -o beep.exe beep.c */

int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
printf("\a);
return(0);
}

*******************************

Response to character 07 is not guaranteed.
In fact, my copy of VPC2007 crashed when playing
around with it :-)

Apparently the "\a" is the equivalent of ASCII 07.
The control codes are the ones closest to zero, and
that one is BEL.

I tested in WinXP, and it worked fine. The piezo beeped,
and no sound came from the regular audio channel.

If the regular audio channel is not working, some
OS notifications can cause a BEL instead, and your piezo
will beep.

In the VM that has my MINGW compiler (and where I started testing),
the BEL character sounded through the regular audio channel.
Which is perhaps, an emulation for the purposes of
having some sort of response.

HTH,
Paul

[Paul]

There's a missing double-quote in the printf.

Paul

[gfre...@aol.com]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 13:40:32 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

I just ran this on my XP SP3 machine and the on board (Intel) beeper
beeps. It does not come out the speakers.

http://gfretwell.com/ftp/BEEP.EXE

This was on my IBM PC DOS 6.3 drive

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <svde9c18ur3n0cd9u...@4ax.com>, RoadRunnerLA
<RoadRun...@AOL.COM> writes:
[]

>Typing CTRL + G from the command prompt in all
>versions of Windows should produce a beep. If

On here, I opened a command prompt, and typed Ctrl-G, and it just made
^G - the character ^ followed by G - appear.

>that doesn't work, check out the troubleshooting
>tips offered at this web site:
>
>http://superuser.com/questions/227939/how-to-make-the-pc-speaker-beep-fr
>om-the-windows-7-command-prompt

That seems to mostly concentrate on Windows 7, including suggesting
getting the driver from XP. I'm in XP (hence posting here).

>
>>Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.
>
>"At times, to fail in life is to succeed,
>and to succeed is to fail."
> --F. M. Isserman (1898-1972)

"My" version is shorter (-:

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

You know what the big secret about posh people is? Most of them are lovely.
- Richard Osman, RT 2016/7/9-15

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <o77dd3$bd5$1...@dont-email.me>, mike <ham...@netzero.net>
writes:
[]
>http://www.wikihow.com/Make-CMD-Beep

Unfortunately, I have a long-standing problem with the Ctrl key(s) on
this machine. (It's at a deep level, as I even have it with the
on-screen "keyboard"!)

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <99je9c5utmsvph57g...@4ax.com>,
gfre...@aol.com writes:
[]

>I just ran this on my XP SP3 machine and the on board (Intel) beeper
>beeps. It does not come out the speakers.
>
>http://gfretwell.com/ftp/BEEP.EXE
>
>This was on my IBM PC DOS 6.3 drive

Thanks! That worked. It also confirmed that the "PC Beep" channel in the
sound mixer on this machine _is_ that source: no sound when its Mute box
is ticked, and the beep's volume follows the slider.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"In the _car_-park? What are you doing there?" "Parking cars, what else does one
do in a car-park?" (First series, fit the fifth.)

[VanguardLH]

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JP...@255soft.uk> on 2017/02/05 wrote:

> I've recently come to suspect that my internal speaker isn't working
> (one software I use has "use internal speaker" as an option [it's
> news/email software, and it's for indicating news/mail has arrived], and
> that doesn't seem to work).

Do a cold boot on the computer. It should beep on startup. That will
indicate whether or not the onboard speaker works or not. This assumes
the computer actually has an onboard speaker (typically piezoelectric).

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <efplem...@mid.individual.net>, VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH>
writes:

It's a netbook. No bootup beep. As explained in other posts in this
thread, when I tried the beep.exe that someone kindly provided a link
to, it did beep, via the existing sound system (and as a configurable
input to its mixer).

On a lot of true desktops, especially older ones, it's a real speaker,
albeit a grotty one. (Though not all - I've seen piezo ones on a stiff
bit of wire to the speaker header.)

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Bother," said Pooh, as Windows crashed into piglet.

[micky]

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 05 Feb 2017 11:07:42

Win10 added because 64 bits are much more common there, iiuc.

I didn't read this last line before I dl'd it, and first I got a box
that said win woudn't run it because it didn't recognize it, and then I
said Run anyhow, and it said This app can't run on PC.

Then it dawned on me that you were running it in CMD so I loaded CMD and
got this message: Unsupported 16-bit operation, Because I'm running
64-bit win10.

Then I started a TCC/LE window and tried the same thing and it made more
a (ding)-dong than a beep, but other than that, it worked easily.

In fact a little bit too easily, since just hitting the Up arrow, to
make the previous command show in the command line makes the sound and
then pressing Enter makes the sound again.

I had already noticed that pasting a command or the address of a .bat
file into the command line made it execute the command or .bat file.
That's strange, but it only happens in TCC/LE, not CMD.

So what th is means is that TCC/LE will run in a 64-bit environment and
still run 16 bit commands. That's good to know.

[Paul]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

> In message <efplem...@mid.individual.net>, VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH>
> writes:
>> "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JP...@255soft.uk> on 2017/02/05 wrote:
>>
>>> I've recently come to suspect that my internal speaker isn't working
>>> (one software I use has "use internal speaker" as an option [it's
>>> news/email software, and it's for indicating news/mail has arrived], and
>>> that doesn't seem to work).
>>
>> Do a cold boot on the computer. It should beep on startup. That will
>> indicate whether or not the onboard speaker works or not. This assumes
>> the computer actually has an onboard speaker (typically piezoelectric).
>
> It's a netbook. No bootup beep. As explained in other posts in this
> thread, when I tried the beep.exe that someone kindly provided a link
> to, it did beep, via the existing sound system (and as a configurable
> input to its mixer).
>
> On a lot of true desktops, especially older ones, it's a real speaker,
> albeit a grotty one. (Though not all - I've seen piezo ones on a stiff
> bit of wire to the speaker header.)

The standards included a PC Beep pin on the audio chip.

Description on Page 4
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm4550b.pdf

The Southbridge (which contains the 8253 timer), has
a pin called "spkr", but it is buffered by a switching
transistor to drive the 1x4 SPKR header. And the
computer case speaker or motherboard piezo, gets
connected to that header.

It's possible there is an intent, to allow connecting the
spkr signal from the Southbridge to the PC Beep input, but
the schematic I've got, shows the AC'97 audio chip with the
PC Beep input AC-grounded and not used.

The SuperI/O apparently has an auditory signal it
would like to output, on a hardware monitor error
condition, but again, it's not clear if there is a
standards-compliant way of incorporating that or not.
When the BIOS wants to tell you about overheat, it
seems to use the 8253 timer itself for that.

When Asus installed their Vocal Post feature (a separate
Winbond chip), as far as I know, that was AC-coupled into
one channel of LineOut. And there was no attempt to be
"PC 99" about that.

I think I would need a time machine, to get details
on this one... The history of PC Beep.

And there's really nothing wrong with the speaker - what
is feeding the speaker is the atrocious part. You're
driving a square wave into the speaker.

If you have a "1-bit audio channel", it is possible
to provide decent fidelity - as long as there is a
reconstruction filter on the output to clean it up.
1-bit audio receives mention here. It was used
in a CD standard. And you might remember years ago,
seeing some stereo equipment with mention of 1-bit DAC.
It's all a matter of getting some good oversampling,
having a low pass on the output and so on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_bit_depth

Paul

[micky]

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 5 Feb 2017 16:54:32

+0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JP...@255soft.uk> wrote:

>

>"In the _car_-park? What are you doing there?" "Parking cars, what else does one
>do in a car-park?" (First series, fit the fifth.)

How come Americans drive on parkways and park on driveways.

Is that true in the UK?

[micky]

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 05 Feb 2017 19:14:37

-0500, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> wrote:

>
>>
>>I just ran this on my XP SP3 machine and the on board (Intel) beeper
>>beeps. It does not come out the speakers.
>>
>>http://gfretwell.com/ftp/BEEP.EXE
>>
>>This was on my IBM PC DOS 6.3 drive
>
>Win10 added because 64 bits are much more common there, iiuc.
>
>I didn't read this last line before I dl'd it, and first I got a box
>that said win woudn't run it because it didn't recognize it, and then I
>said Run anyhow, and it said This app can't run on PC.
>
>Then it dawned on me that you were running it in CMD so I loaded CMD and
>got this message: Unsupported 16-bit operation, Because I'm running
>64-bit win10.
>
>Then I started a TCC/LE window and tried the same thing and it made more
>a (ding)-dong than a beep, but other than that, it worked easily.
>
>In fact a little bit too easily, since just hitting the Up arrow, to
>make the previous command show in the command line makes the sound and
>then pressing Enter makes the sound again.
>
>I had already noticed that pasting a command or the address of a .bat
>file into the command line made it execute the command or .bat file.
>That's strange, but it only happens in TCC/LE, not CMD.
>
>So what th is means is that TCC/LE will run in a 64-bit environment and
>still run 16 bit commands. That's good to know.

Well, sort of.

I don't think I have a pc speaker, and I think the sound came from
exterrnal speakers.

But I closed the tcc/le window and then realized I hadn't looked at the
mixer to see if a special channel was opened. So I opened a tcc/le
window again and did it again and this time I got the message that I
can't run 16-bit programs.

I don't know what I did different this time from last. ?????????

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <75gf9chruckrju9p5...@4ax.com>, micky

The latter half certainly is; we don't have anything we call "parkways"
as a general thing, though I know of at least one road called Parkway
(through Chelmsford, Essex).

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Last week, face cream. This week, the search for life on Mars. Never let it be
said /Horizon/ doesn't probe the frontiers of sciemce. - David Butcher, Radio
Times 28 July-3 August 2012.

[Kerr Mudd-John]

On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 00:30:16 -0000, J. P. Gilliver (John)

<G6JP...@255soft.uk> wrote:

> In message <75gf9chruckrju9p5...@4ax.com>, micky
> <NONONO...@bigfoot.com> writes:
>> In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 5 Feb 2017 16:54:32
>> +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JP...@255soft.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> "In the _car_-park? What are you doing there?" "Parking cars, what
>>> else does one
>>> do in a car-park?" (First series, fit the fifth.)
>>
>> How come Americans drive on parkways and park on driveways.
>>
>> Is that true in the UK?
>
> The latter half certainly is; we don't have anything we call "parkways"
> as a general thing, though I know of at least one road called Parkway
> (through Chelmsford, Essex).

There are several railway stations called Parkway (Tiverton Bristol and
Didcot spring to mind).
It implies that the station isn't that near the town! Gosh, there's lots!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Parkway_railway_stations_in_Britain

--
Bah, and indeed, Humbug