Re: Desk Accessories question

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

In article <33822b$c2l@ionews.io.org>, Brian Tao <taob@io.org> wrote:
> In article <CuJvBv.A7y@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, Rolf Braun
> <rbraun@Hopper.ITC.Virginia.EDU> wrote: 
> >
> >The reason the Sound control panel keeps the startup sound in memory is
> >that technically, any program can play it, even after startup, by
> >calling SysBeep2 with certain parameters. Therefore, this will
> >probably never be changed. 
> 
>     But what prevents GS/OS from reloading the sound from disk when that
> request is made, like it does for all the other sounds?  Is the startup
> sound marked as locked and unpurgeable, or what?

All of the sounds are preloaded when the Sound Control Panel starts
up.  They are kept in unlocked, moveable, but unpurgeable handles.  An
interesting point: they aren't marked "no special memory"!

It is possible that SysBeep2 may be called at a time when doing a
Resource Manager call would not be possible, so keeping the sounds in
memory is the "safest" option.

(To find your sound handles in Nifty List, use the 5000i command -
they are a bunch of handles without a pathname, all with the same user
ID.)


In theory, it could have an out of memory handler to purge the sounds
in really low memory situations, but I can't find any documentation
which says it does this.
-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand