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beep

Summary

The beep component is a simple multi-tone beeper provided by Computronics. It is designed for short alerts, melodies, and status sounds without managing a full instruction queue like the sound card.

The card can play up to eight tones at the same time. Each tone is a square wave with a configurable frequency and duration.

Availability

  • Repository: computronics
  • Component name: beep
  • Typical host: computers and other OpenComputers devices that can use the Computronics beep card

Usage

local component = require("component")
local beep = component.beep

if not beep then
  error("beep component not installed")
end

You can also access a specific device with component.proxy(address).

API

beep

  • Syntax: beep.beep(frequencyDurationTable)
  • Returns:
    • Success: true
    • Failure: false, reason
  • Purpose: Plays one or more tones immediately.

Parameters:

  • frequencyDurationTable:table: a Lua table whose keys are frequencies in hertz and whose values are durations in seconds.

Behavior:

  • The table may contain at most 8 frequency entries.
  • Every frequency must be a number in the range 20 to 2000 Hz.
  • Every duration must be numeric when present.
  • If a duration is omitted or set to nil, the card uses 0.1 seconds.
  • Durations are clamped to 50 ms minimum and 5000 ms maximum.
  • The card also refuses the call when the new tones plus currently playing tones would exceed 8 simultaneous sounds.

Common failure results:

  • false, "table must not contain more than 8 frequencies"
  • false, "already too many sounds playing, maximum is 8"
  • false, reason when the component network does not have enough energy

Example:

local ok, reason = beep.beep({
  [440] = 0.15,
  [660] = 0.15,
  [880] = 0.30
})

if not ok then
  io.stderr:write("Beep failed: " .. tostring(reason) .. "\n")
end

Example: quick success and error tones.

local function successTone()
  assert(beep.beep({[880] = 0.08, [1320] = 0.12}))
end

local function errorTone()
  assert(beep.beep({[220] = 0.20, [180] = 0.25}))
end

getBeepCount

  • Syntax: beep.getBeepCount()
  • Returns: number
  • Purpose: Returns how many beep channels are currently active.

This is useful when you want to avoid sending more tones while the card is still busy.

Example:

if beep.getBeepCount() == 0 then
  beep.beep({[523.25] = 0.1})
end

Notes

  • This component always uses square-wave output.
  • Unlike the sound card, it does not expose an instruction queue, channel controls, or modulation features.

Related

  • component
  • sound
  • noise