This PHP extension exposes an API to control your PC speaker.
A console terminal device is used to access the hardware. Before you can use the speaker, open a device:
pcspeak_open("/dev/tty");Note that you must have privileges to access the device. Opening the TTY from your current session should work without special privileges.
To start and sustain a tone on the speaker, use:
pcspeak_sustain($note, $octave);The pitch of the speaker is determined based on the two arguments passed to pcspeak_sustain. These arguments are integers mapped on the chromatic scale to the corresponding frequency. To sustain a 'central-C', pass $note=0 and $octave=4
To release the tone, use:
pcspeak_release();By providing a "low level" sustain/release mechanism, it's possible to produce audible signals without blocking normal execution of the application.
When finished, close the device:
pcspeak_close();The demo folder contains a music player, check it out!
demo $ ./demo.php --device=/dev/console
- this will definately only work on Linux
- make sure you have the pcspkr kernel module (or alternative) loaded
- man console_ioctl
- Physics of Music: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html
- miditones.c was used to generate a byte stream of simplified midi events for the demo
- https://code.google.com/p/miditones/
- use gcc -lbsd to compile miditones