BEEP behaviour with 2019 version

[steve]

I have noticed a problem with the audible beep in the 2019 release of vDos. I suspect this will probably NOT present a problem for most other users.

The program I am testing requires the User to logon. On successful logon the program emits an audible beep. With the previous versions of vDos this has worked as expected.
With the 2019 version of vDos the BEEP sound is delayed and then seems to be repeated. The timings for the delays and the repeat 'echos' seem to be slightly random. Other than recording the times in Excel no changes other windows tasks were made during these runs. 

-     INITIAL DELAY    1st 'ECHO'      2nd 'ECHO'

RUN 1      15s              4s            2s

RUN 2      16s              3s            3s

RUN 3      10s              0.75s         2s

RUN 4      8s               0.5s          3s


The BEEP.WAV file I have downloaded from the internet is beep.wav (9.47 KB)

The config.txt file is  CONFIG.TXT (498 B)

[Jos]

That’s mystifying. Beep.wav is played asynchronously using PlaySound(), so vDos doesn’t wait for it to finish.
You can test this by TYPE attached beep.txt (just an ASCII 7) at the command prompt. Eventually use an alternative WAV file that takes longer.

The delay and echo would be caused by your program, some timing issue?
Still weird, the vDos beep is only produced by calling the BIOS Int 10, no timings to expect with that.
If you don't supply a beep.wav, there're no delays?

Jos

Attachments:

beep.txt (1 B)

[steve]

I did some further investigations with various BEEP.WAV files (some just a short blip, and some with a longer sound). Unfortunately there were inconclusive.
The longer sounds were definitely 'chopped' but even the short blips were repeated and it was impossible if they were just short samples of the BEEP.WAV or repeats. There was almost always a 6 or more second delay before the first sound was emitted. The rest of the program seemed to behave normally (i.e. it didn't wait for the sound to be made or for it to be completed).

Attached are some of the BEEP.WAV files that I tried: beep2.wav (337.1 KB)  beep3.wav (22.59 KB)  beep4.wav (11.68 KB)

If no BEEP.WAV is supplied then there is no visible effect - if a BEEP.WAV is supplied there is no visual effect!

I can live without a beep (and so can my customers). Just thought you should be aware of the change in behaviour. 

Cheers,
Steve

Addendum
------------
I created a directory with just Vdos.EXE, BEEP.TXT and one of the BEEP.WAV files in it. (No Autoexec.TXT and no CONFIG.TXT). At C:\> I entered TYPE BEEP.TXT and each of the BEEP.WAV files acted as expected (but no other program was running under vDos so it wouldn't have to time slice). When no BEEP.WAV file was present no sound was made. 

From this I conclude that the order processing program that I am running does not release the CPU for enough time for the sound to be completely output!

[Jos]

I tested beep2.wav, 5 consecutive TYPE beep.txt in a batch file. The command prompt immediately returns, “…your presence has been detected” played w/o interruption.

The sounds are ‘chopped’ in your program, so that would indicate the beep was started more than once by your program. Some weird (unique) timing issue: I start a timer, emit a beep, then pause for some time. If the timer isn’t incremented (the beep returns immediately), I get completely confused and do silly things?

No actual explanation, w/o a beep.wav file, it’s all the same to vDos and your program.
While there’s that initial delay. It’s not some Windows issue, this behavior is with more than one PC?

Jos

[steve]

I will check the Order Processing program for (beep) multiple outputs of 'BEL'.

I haven't tried it on any other workstation yet as I want to test out the program with the new vDos release before introducing it to my customer's site. (Also I will be away on vacation at the end of this week so that doesn't help!).

I think more thought required from me!

As always, thanks for your help.

Steve

[Jos]

Always correct to test before going into a production environment.
Beep.wav presence shouldn’t matter to vDos, so certainly not to your program. I bet something is off with Windows, perhaps only with playing WAV files.

Jos

[steve]

I think I have found the root of the problem and it was all my fault!
In the program I output "\a" for the beep. I also called functions sound() and nosound() in a small loop to give a two tone audible alert. It seems that sound() and nosound() not only do not work under vDos but also were interfering with the output of the alarm character.
I have commented out all calls to sound() and nosound() and the program now gives a beep sound correctly, the presence (or absence) of BEEP.WAV does not make any difference - it seems to be ignored.

Sorry for the red herring and thank you for your patience & help.
Cheers,
Steve

Sorry, I was testing against the 2018 release of vDos. The behaviour of my program with the 2019 release is still problematic with alarms. I will investigate further.  

[steve]

Message deleted - I thought the behaviour had changed but I was testing against the wrong version of vDos. It's never a good idea to test when you are tired!

[steve]

Further Information:

I was using ProcessLassoo application to monitor 'real-time' CPU resource usage and it seems that this was causing the Beep to be time sliced.

I will investigate further and report back any findings.