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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Let the Sun-3 beep! How??? - (nf)
Message-ID: <17041@sun.uucp>
Date: Tue, 21-Apr-87 00:34:21 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.17041
Posted: Tue Apr 21 00:34:21 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Apr-87 01:37:48 EST
References: <8200006@iaoobelix.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
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> Apparently, it is impossible to let the Sun console beep without using
> `window_bell'. Does anybody out there know of a possiblity other than this
> function (e.g. by accessing the keyboard bell) to generate a beep?

As the saying goes, "seek and ye shall find".  Seek in the
documentation first, and you stand a good chance of finding without
having to ask.  Quoting from our documentation (KB(4S) in the 3.2
UNIX Interface Reference, although it's in the 3.0 documentation as
well):

     Keyboard Commands
	The call KIOCCMD sends a command to the keyboard:

	     /*
	      * Commands to the Sun-2 keyboard.
	      */
	     #define KBD_CMD_RESET   0x01 /* Reset keyboard as if power-up */
	     #define KBD_CMD_BELL    0x02 /* Turn on the bell */
	     #define KBD_CMD_NOBELL  0x03 /* Turn off the bell */

	     /*
	      * Commands to the Sun-3 keyboard.  KBD_CMD_BELL & KBD_CMD_NOBELL
	      * work as well.
	      */
	     #define KBD_CMD_CLICK   0x0A /* Turn on the click annunciator */
	     #define KBD_CMD_NOCLICK 0x0B /* Turn off the click annunciator */

	     int x;
	     err = ioctl(fd, KIOCCMD, &x);

	Inappropriate commands for particular keyboard types are ignored.
	Since there is no reliable way to get the state of the bell or click
	(because we can't query the keyboard, and also because a process could
	do writes to the appropriate serial driver -- thus going around this
	'ioctl') we don't provide an equivalent "ioctl" to query its state.

The "ioctl"s are defined in <sys/kbio.h> and the commands are defined
in <sys/kbd.h>.  This "ioctl" should be issued on "/dev/kbd" or
whatever keyboard you're running from.  All "win_bell" does to
generate an audible bell is to:

	open the keyboard for the current screen
	do a KIOCCMD with a pointer to a variable containing
	    KBD_CMD_BELL
	sleep for the specified interval of time
	do a KIOCCMD with a pointer to a variable containing
	    KBD_CMD_NOBELL
	close the keyboard

(The KBD_CMD_CLICK/KBD_CMD_NOCLICK stuff is for turning keyclick mode
on and off.)

No muss, no fuss, and *especially* no need for "/dev/bell" (which is
not a supported item, so there's no guarantee that it will work on
future keyboards).