Random Disturbing Thought

[Kathy Guinea]

And this is how an AMI (American Megatrends Inc.) BIOS equipped IBM compatible screams "AHH!  I CAN'T FEEL MY VIDEO CARD!"

Wow you can almost hear it saying, "It's gone?! WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?!" That's an interesting error beep. You made it do that just for this post didn't you?

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Wow you can almost hear it saying, "It's gone?! WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?!" That's an interesting error beep. You made it do that just for this post didn't you?

Actually, I had that recording for quite a while now.    But it's not hard to duplicate since it happens on pretty much ANY AMI-equipped board.  (And I got piles of 386 and 486 boards that can be started without video.)  I remember being worried one time when I was servicing my box and I got that little string.  (Athlon XP 1600+, y'know nice system worth something.)  Fortunately it was just a badly seated card I believe.

For comparison, here's the 1981 IBM PC original's much more mellow way of crying for inability to display:

http://bobstuffs.no-ip.com/El-Hazard/temp/bob/VIDBEEP.wav

I always found the AMI kinda amusing in a sadistic sense since, as you noted, it's more like a panic sound.

[freekling]

Besides it was just a musing no need to call the idea "ludicrous," just something to think on. Machines only can do so much, you should be nice to them if you want them to work for you.

Meh, until I see some machines going on an equal rights march, I'll continue to treat them badly.

[Saucer]

Speaking of panicy error messages, Unix can generate some interesting ones at times. While Apple's switch from the original OS to a Unix based one held alot of advantages for us Mac users, we also picked up a whole new slew of Unix quirks non-users might not be familiar with. My favorite is the aptly named "Kernel Panic." If you have a piece of hardware connected that Unix doesn't like, it will freak out and display an error message in 4 different languages informing you that an erro has occured and you have to restart. You also get an incomprehensible error code at the bottom of the window. But it's not just peripherals, it also includes internal hardware! Like if you have a RAM chip that's kinda flakey or isn't seated properly, but still works Unix will go bananas until you reseat it or remove it entirely.