Re: Error and correction beeps

[Emery Snyder emerylist@xxxxxxxx]

for what it's worth, my Sony laptop PCG-FX200K running Windows 2000
service pack 4 produced a beep in a DOS prompt box with "echo ^G".
(But doesn't produce error beeps for spelling errors in XyWin).





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Thursday, July 24, 2003, 3:44:21 PM, Patricia wrote:

> This gets weirder and weirder. I think we can scratch ATX and power
> management schemes. Or at least they are not solely responsible. It seems
> that MOST "modern" systems, including a few pretty ancient ones, CANNOT
> emit beeps from a DOS prompt (or, apparently, a DOS app running in such a
> box) within 32-bit Windows. To test, open a DOS prompt and type
> Echo ^G (producing the last by either holding down CTRL and typing G or
> holding down ALT and typing 7 on the number pad). Then hit Enter/Return.
> If you hear a beep, you are very fortunate. I tried this on various
> systems hereabouts: 2 ATXes (a Digital Venturis P200 and a Shuttle Mobo
> PIII) and 2 ATs (a Compaq P 200 MMX and a no-name AMD K5 100 MHz), plus
> an IBM PII that has a proprietary Mobo with an expansion chassis and a
> half-and-half power scheme: it doesn't turn off of itself, but has to be
> turned on from the power button, not just the surge. Only the Compaq
> beeped. Furthermore, my K6-2 suddenly stopped beeping after a NIC was
> added (but this system is very scrambled--Device Manager shows chunks of
> RAM with "in use by unknown device"--and is due for a reinstall).
>     The presence or absence of sound cards seems to make no difference. I
> suspect the cause is the complex interaction of PnP opsys, BIOS, and the
> PCI spec. That last, by the bye, was a real surprise when I read up on
> it. It seems that under the PCI spec there are four sharable interrupts.
> Any device that uses just one interrupt gets assigned to the first (A#);
> any that use more than one (as sound cards or voice modems often do) get
> assigned to one of the others. But then all of these devices are "mapped"
> to the traditional IRQs by Windows. The thing that makes me think the
> BIOS may be involved is that the AT that wouldn't beep and the new ATX
> that won't are both AMI; this PC, which used to beep, is Award, and the
> Compaq that does has a Compaq BIOS. What a mess!
> Patricia