.\" $NetBSD: speaker.4,v 1.11 1999/04/06 20:24:42 pk Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1993 Christopher G. Demetriou .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou. .\" 4. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products .\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT .\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, .\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY .\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT .\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF .\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .Dd August 6, 1993 .Dt SPEAKER 4 i386 .Os .Sh NAME speaker \- console speaker device driver .Sh SYNOPSIS .Cd "spkr0 at pcppi?" .Fd #include .Pa /dev/speaker .Sh DESCRIPTION The speaker device driver allows applications to control the PC console speaker on an IBM-PC-compatible machine running UNIX. .Pp Only one process may have this device open at any given time; open() and close() are used to lock and relinquish it. An attempt to open() when another process has the device locked will return -1 with an EBUSY error indication. Writes to the device are interpreted as 'play strings' in a simple ASCII melody notation. An ioctl() for tone generation at arbitrary frequencies is also supported. .Pp Sound-generation does \fInot\fR monopolize the processor; in fact, the driver spends most of its time sleeping while the PC hardware is emitting tones. Other processes may emit beeps while the driver is running. .Pp Applications may call ioctl() on a speaker file descriptor to control the speaker driver directly; definitions for the ioctl() interface are in . The tone_t structure used in these calls has two fields, specifying a frequency (in hz) and a duration (in 1/100ths of a second). A frequency of zero is interpreted as a rest. .Pp At present there are two such ioctls. SPKRTONE accepts a pointer to a single tone structure as third argument and plays it. SPKRTUNE accepts a pointer to the first of an array of tone structures and plays them in continuous sequence; this array must be terminated by a final member with a zero duration. .Pp The play-string language is modelled on the PLAY statement conventions of IBM BASIC 2.0. The MB, MF and X primitives of PLAY are not useful in a UNIX environment and are omitted. The `octave-tracking' feature is also new. .Pp There are 84 accessible notes numbered 1-83 in 7 octaves, each running from C to B, numbered 0-6; the scale is equal-tempered A440 and octave 3 starts with middle C. By default, the play function emits half-second notes with the last 1/16th second being `rest time'. .Pp Play strings are interpreted left to right as a series of play command groups; letter case is ignored. Play command groups are as follows: .Pp CDEFGAB -- letters A through G cause the corresponding note to be played in the current octave. A note letter may optionally be followed by an \fIaccidental sign\fR, one of # + or -; the first two of these cause it to be sharped one half-tone, the last causes it to be flatted one half-tone. It may also be followed by a time value number and by sustain dots (see below). Time values are interpreted as for the L command below;. .Pp O -- if is numeric, this sets the current octave. may also be one of 'L' or 'N' to enable or disable octave-tracking (it is disabled by default). When octave-tracking is on, interpretation of a pair of letter notes will change octaves if necessary in order to make the smallest possible jump between notes. Thus "olbc" will be played as "olb>c", and "olcb" as "olc, < and O[0123456]. .Pp > -- bump the current octave up one. .Pp < -- drop the current octave down one. .Pp N -- play note n, n being 1 to 84 or 0 for a rest of current time value. May be followedv by sustain dots. .Pp L -- sets the current time value for notes. The default is L4, quarter notes. The lowest possible value is 1; values up to 64 are accepted. L1 sets whole notes, L2 sets half notes, L4 sets quarter notes, etc.. .Pp P -- pause (rest), with interpreted as for L. May be followed by sustain dots. May also be written '~'. .Pp T -- Sets the number of quarter notes per minute; default is 120. Musical names for common tempi are: .Bl -column Description Tempo BPM -offset indent .Em Tempo Beats per Minute very slow Larghissimo Largo 40-60 Larghetto 60-66 Grave Lento Adagio 66-76 slow Adagietto Andante 76-108 medium Andantino Moderato 108-120 fast Allegretto Allegro 120-168 Vivace Veloce Presto 168-208 very fast Prestissimo .El .Pp M[LNS] -- set articulation. MN (N for normal) is the default; the last 1/8th of the note's value is rest time. You can set ML for legato (no rest space) or MS (staccato) 1/4 rest space. .Pp Notes (that is, CDEFGAB or N command character groups) may be followed by sustain dots. Each dot causes the note's value to be lengthened by one-half for each one. Thus, a note dotted once is held for 3/2 of its undotted value; dotted twice, it is held 9/4, and three times would give 27/8. .Pp Whitespace in play strings is simply skipped and may be used to separate melody sections. .Sh BUGS Due to roundoff in the pitch tables and slop in the tone-generation and timer hardware (neither of which was designed for precision), neither pitch accuracy nor timings will be mathematically exact. .Pp There is no volume control. .Pp In play strings which are very long (longer than your system's physical I/O blocks) note suffixes or numbers may occasionally be parsed incorrectly due to crossing a block boundary. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width Pa -compact .It Pa /dev/speaker .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr pcppi 4 . .Sh AUTHOR Eric S. Raymond (esr@snark.thyrsus.com) Feb 1990