Several programs, including MP (Module Player, 1989), Scream Tracker, Fast Tracker, Impulse Tracker, and even device drivers for Linux and Microsoft Windows, could play PCM sound through the PC speaker. Most newly-released PC games stopped supporting the speaker during the second half of the 1990s. Thus, when sound cards (which can output complex sounds independent from the CPU once initiated) became mainstream in the PC market after 1990, they quickly replaced the PC speaker as the preferred output device for sound effects. Also, it was difficult for programs to do much else, even update the display, during the playing of such sounds. However, because the method used to reproduce PCM was very sensitive to timing issues, these effects either caused noticeable sluggishness on slower PCs or sometimes failed on faster PCs (that is, significantly faster than the program was originally developed for). Several games such as Space Hulk and Pinball Fantasies were noted for their elaborate sound effects Space Hulk, in particular, even had full speech. The PC speaker was often used in very innovative ways to create the impression of polyphonic music or sound effects within computer games of its era, such as the LucasArts series of adventure games from the mid-1980s, using swift arpeggios. Problems playing this file? See media help. Several programs, including music software, operating systems or games, could play pulse-code modulation (PCM) sound through the PC speaker using special Pulse-width Modulation techniques explained later in this article. These patterns are specific to the BIOS/UEFI manufacturer and are usually documented in the technical manual of the motherboard. "one beep pause three beeps pause repeat". Usually, different error codes will be signalled by specific beeping patterns, such as e.g. For example, the Video BIOS usually cannot activate a graphics card unless working RAM is present in the system while beeping the speaker is possible with just ROM and the CPU registers. Since it is active before the graphics card, it can be used to communicate "beep codes" related to problems that prevent the much more complex initialization of the graphics card to take place. The PC speaker is used during the power-on self-test (POST) sequence to indicate errors during the boot process. ![]() See also: Power-on self-test ยง Progress and error reporting
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