How can i emit a signal from the PC Speaker under a Win32 platform? There doesn''t seem to be an appropiate API function (at least i didn''t find one). I cannot use the normal sound system because that could be captured by fullscreen apps. So I thought using the PC Speaker would be a good idea because it should always be avaible... Any suggestions? thanks ridcully

MessageBeep(0xFFFFFFFF);

yeah, i found that one in the sdk documentation, but it doesn''t work if said app has the sound in exclusive mode captured.

i need some low-level code for that i suppose

Well, there''s the Beep(DWORD dwFreq, DWORD dwDuration); command, but that doesn''t work in Win95 and I''m not sure if it would be happy with exclusive mode.

I seem to recall that there was a control character you could use to produce a system beep, I think it was \a or possibly \g. I can''t find anything on it tho. It''s supposed to be a native C/C++ escape sequence for alerts, but I don''t know that it was retained in Windows. Try using a cout with one of those and see if it works.

Personally I try not to put my sound library in exclusive mode. It''s usually happy in normal mode.

Tell me if one of those works, I''m curious.

-fel

Hmmm, apparently it''s \a, it was listed under "escape sequences" but not "control characters".

no, it''s a pity but it doesn''t seem to work.

my intent is to emit any kind of signal to the user while he is playing a fullscreen game (that has captured both sound and video in exclusive mode).
can you think of any other way to do that?

Hmm. Well, I''m out of ideas. I don''t know the assembly commands to make stuff beep, and even that would probably be processed through the sound card first and therefore get lost.

It kind of surprises me that you''ve found a game with that problem... even Everquest, which locks you out of alt-tab, is in normal mode and allows sounds from other apps to get through.

have you tried fputc(''\07'', stdout)?

Hu... guys? I thought modern PCs came without a Speaker... I might (am?) wrong though

wrong

JoeMont001@aol.com www.polarisoft.n3.net