man/man4/speaker.4

.\" $NetBSD: speaker.4,v 1.23 2017/06/13 06:25:20 nat Exp $
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.\" Copyright (c) 2016 Nathanial Sloss <nathanialsloss@yahoo.com.au>
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.\" Copyright (c) 1993 Christopher G. Demetriou
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.\" <<Id: LICENSE,v 1.2 2000/06/14 15:57:33 cgd Exp>>
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.Dd June 13, 2017
.Dt SPEAKER 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm speaker
.Nd console speaker audio device driver
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Cd "spkr*	at pcppi?"
.Cd "spkr*	at audio?"
.Pp
.In machine/spkr.h
.Pa /dev/speaker
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The speaker device driver allows applications to control the console
speaker on machines with a PC-like 8253 timer implementation or a synthesized
speaker from an audio device/soundcard.
.Pp
Only one process may have this device open at any given time;
.Xr open 2
and
.Xr close 2
are used to lock and relinquish it.
An attempt to
.Xr open 2
when another process has the device locked will return \-1 with an
.Er EBUSY
error indication.
Writes to the device are interpreted as 'play strings' in a
simple ASCII melody notation.
An
.Fn ioctl
for tone generation at arbitrary frequencies is also supported.
.Pp
For the pcppi device sound-generation does
.Em not
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
For the audio device speaker, the speaker uses one of the virtual audio
channels.
Enabling this device will also provide a
.Xr wsbell 4
keyboard bell.
.Pp
Applications may call
.Fn ioctl
on a speaker file descriptor to control the speaker driver directly;
definitions for the
.Fn ioctl
interface are in
.In dev/spkrio.h .
.Pp
The tone_t structure is as follows:
.Bd -literal
typedef struct {
	int	frequency;	/* in hertz */
	int	duration;	/* in 1/100ths of a second */
} tone_t;
.Ed
A frequency of zero is interpreted as a rest.
.Pp
At present there are four ioctls:
.Bl -tag -width Dv
.It Dv SPKRGETVOL
Returns an integer, which is the current bell volume as a percentage (0-100).
.It Dv SPKRSETVOL
Accepts an integer, which is the desired volume as a percentage.
.It Dv SPKRTONE
Accepts a pointer to a single tone structure as third argument and plays it.
.It Dv 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.
.El
.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
.Em accidental sign ,
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 <n> -- if <n> is numeric, this sets the current octave.
<n> 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<b".
Octave
locking is disabled for one letter note following by >, < and O[0123456].
.Pp
> -- bump the current octave up one.
.Pp
< -- drop the current octave down one.
.Pp
N <n> -- play note n, n being 1 to 84 or 0 for a rest of current time value.
May be followed by sustain dots.
.Pp
L <n> -- 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 <n> -- pause (rest), with <n> interpreted as for L.
May be followed by
sustain dots.
May also be written '~'.
.Pp
T <n> -- Sets the number of quarter notes per minute; default is 120.
Musical names for common tempi are:
.Bl -column Description Prestissimo "Beats per Minute" -offset indent
.It Ta Sy Tempo Ta Sy "Beats per Minute"
.It very slow Ta Larghissimo Ta ""
.It           Ta Largo Ta 40-60
.It           Ta Larghetto Ta 60-66
.It           Ta Grave Ta ""
.It           Ta Lento Ta ""
.It           Ta Adagio Ta 66-76
.It slow Ta Adagietto Ta ""
.It      Ta Andante Ta 76-108
.It medium Ta Andantino Ta ""
.It        Ta Moderato Ta 108-120
.It fast Ta Allegretto Ta ""
.It      Ta Allegro Ta 120-168
.It      Ta Vivace Ta ""
.It      Ta Veloce Ta ""
.It      Ta Presto Ta 168-208
.It very fast Ta Prestissimo Ta ""
.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 FILES
.Bl -tag -width Pa -compact
.It Pa /dev/speaker
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr audio 4 ,
.Xr pcppi 4 ,
.Xr wsbell 4 ,
.Xr sysctl 8
.Sh HISTORY
This
.Nm
device was originally for the pcppi PC timer interface.
Support was added for a synthesized device by Nathanial Sloss, first appearing
in
.Nx 8.0 .
.Sh AUTHORS
.An Eric S. Raymond Aq Mt esr@snark.thyrsus.com
.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.