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Boot chime on pre Mac OS X?

Josias

Josias

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 10, 2006
1,908
1
I noticed that only Windows XP has a boot chime. My mom's ME machine has no boot sound anyway. I wondered whether Mac OS 7, 8 or 9 had boot chimes like the one in Mac OS X, and does Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar and Panther have different boot sounds from Tiger? Just wondering...:D
 
Macintosh computers have always had a boot chime I believe, on every machine sine 1984.

The chime has however evolved. It is not linked to the OS but to the firmware.
 
Yes, pre OS X macs have boot chimes. In fact, I think every mac has had one. The chime doesn't (as far as I know) change with OS, but it has changed with different computers.
 
My Powerbook 5300CS still chimes.
But it sounds shorter, and of a lower quality then the one my MBP makes.

When I boot one after the other, they sound totally different, but just one, and my ear cant tell the difference.
 
Mactracker

You can listen to the different boot chimes if you'd like.

Mactracker

Description:
Mactracker provides detailed technical information on every Apple Macintosh model along with information on Motorola, PowerComputing, and UMAX clones. The database also includes Apple mice, keyboards, displays, printers, scanners, digital cameras, AirPort Base Stations, iPod, Newtons, and Mac OS versions.
Click to expand...
Download: here
 
Damn Windows wannabeeeez!:mad: :D

I'm downloading this MacTracker now. I noticed my brother 14" iBook makes a slight different chime than mine. But, is it true that boot chimes were first inroduced to Windows at XP, or was there any before then?
 
The "boot chimes" are embedded in the Mac's firmware and have nothing to do with the OS. The "beep" you hear when starting a PC is the same -- it's generated by the ROM-BIOS (and, on the Mac, OpenFirmware or EFI), and is technically called the POST (power-on self test) sound.
 
Thanks for your responses, MacTracker is really cool. I love the boot chime of the PowerMacintosh 5200:D

But I just gotta say, whenever I have an external audio perihipal (turned on) plugged in when booting, the boot chime still comes through the internal speakers. I have tried with both iPod headphones, 2 types of external speakers, my wireless Sennheiser headphones, but it still comes through the internal speakers? Why is this?:confused:
 
Josias said:
Thanks for your responses, MacTracker is really cool. I love the boot chime of the PowerMacintosh 5200:D

But I just gotta say, whenever I have an external audio perihipal (turned on) plugged in when booting, the boot chime still comes through the internal speakers. I have tried with both iPod headphones, 2 types of external speakers, my wireless Sennheiser headphones, but it still comes through the internal speakers? Why is this?:confused:
Click to expand...


on a windoze computer the built in beeps and chimes come from the BIOS on the motherboard and directly out to the internal speaker, because you must have audio drivers running in order to use external speakers. :D

and yes the 5260/120 has that chime as well, very different from the rest
 

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The chimes I REALLY like tho are the glass-breaking/death chime. The one where you completely screw up your system and tells you that you're a failure. I didn't completely install some new ram on a 6400 (i think) and it gave me that sound. I was freakin out, but then realized what I did, but before i fixed the problem, i restarted it again just to hear the glass break one more time. :p
 
jamesW135 said:
My PowerBook 540c has the chime. It sounds richer than that of my iMac.
Click to expand...

I still prefer the iMac sound. I listened to the PowerBook 540/540c sound, and it sounded like the iMac, but with a wierd short sound first, and then a kinda more empty and shorter iMac chime...
 
Josias said:
But I just gotta say, whenever I have an external audio perihipal (turned on) plugged in when booting, the boot chime still comes through the internal speakers. I have tried with both iPod headphones, 2 types of external speakers, my wireless Sennheiser headphones, but it still comes through the internal speakers? Why is this?:confused:
Click to expand...
I THINK this was changed with the new EFI firmware on the Intel macs; I've noticed that they still chime through the internal speakers even if you've got something plugged into the output jacks. That didn't used to be the case--the chime would play through the external speakers on most (if not all) PPC and earlier Macs.

As for your Windows "Boot chime" question, are you talking about the "BIOS beep" some PCs make when you power them up, or are you talking about the little tune that Windows plays as you're starting up? If you're talking about the tune, it's not new to XP--2000 had it, and I believe earlier "home" OSes (ME at least, maybe farther back) had something similar. I remember one of them as sounding really creepy, though, especially the shut down tune--it had some sort of seagull-like sound that frightened me.

If this is what you're talking about, there's no Mac equivalent, since the Windows sound is part of the OS, while the Mac one is in the firmware (or ROM, in older machines) for the computer. You'll notice that Intel Macs chime even when booting into Windows--it happens before the OS has even begun loading.
 
Oh, okay. Thanks Makosuke.
It's true XP's little tune is very odd, but I'm sure ME didn't have it. Anyways, I got my problem solved. I just love the Mac chime...:D
 
Makosuke said:
If you're talking about the tune, it's not new to XP--2000 had it, and I believe earlier "home" OSes (ME at least, maybe farther back) had something similar.
Click to expand...
Windows 95 had a startup chime. I remember turning it off on my first computer.
 
Makosuke said:
If this is what you're talking about, there's no Mac equivalent, since the Windows sound is part of the OS, while the Mac one is in the firmware (or ROM, in older machines) for the computer. You'll notice that Intel Macs chime even when booting into Windows--it happens before the OS has even begun loading.
Click to expand...

Actually, the default Windows start up/shut down sounds can be changed or (even better) turned off in the control panels. They really are quite useless. Annoying, even. The POST beep obviously cannot be turned off, short of unplugging the PC's internal speaker.

Incidentally, I believe the Mac's POST sound (aka, the "boot chime") has always been digitally sampled, which is why it always sounded better than the screechy POST sound still used on PCs to this very day.

One other thing, I recall years ago Guy Kawasaki playing the THX "zoom" at a conference I attended (can't remember why; to impress us I guess). This generated a discussion about how cool it would be if Apple licensed the THX zoom as the startup sound for the Mac. I can imagine people rebooting their Macs over and over again just to hear it. :)
 
All Macs (did Lisa?) have a chime, doesn't matter what OS it is (It's all about hardware). From the Macintosh 128k beep to today's standard harmonic chord.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Actually, the default Windows start up/shut down sounds can be changed or (even better) turned off in the control panels. They really are quite useless. Annoying, even. The POST beep obviously cannot be turned off, short of unplugging the PC's internal speaker.
Click to expand...
I'm aware that the Windows tune is a software thing and can just be turned off, though I'm pretty sure you can turn the POST off in the BIOS of some PCs.

And I was right that it's not at all new; there has been startup music available in Windows since 95 as pointed out; I finally found the article about the guy who wrote it, which I knew I'd read a while ago:

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/09/08/54811.aspx

Josias--perhaps you turned it off in your copy of ME? I don't see why MS would have removed it then put it back in 2000 (though thankfully I've only used ME for any length of time once, so I have little experience with it).

Bobdude161 said:
and yes the 5260/120 has that chime as well, very different from the rest
Click to expand...
How do you mean "Different from the rest"? I thought all of the 52xx series Performas (as well as most PPC Performas of the era) had the same chime.
 
:rolleyes: miscommunication there. i meant different from all the other chimes of all the other ones. Just giving an example of a 52xx, if someone didn't know what they looked like. :eek:
 
Makosuke said:
I THINK this was changed with the new EFI firmware on the Intel macs; I've noticed that they still chime through the internal speakers even if you've got something plugged into the output jacks. That didn't used to be the case--the chime would play through the external speakers on most (if not all) PPC and earlier Macs.
Click to expand...

My 1.42 GHz PPC Mac mini has always played the chime through the internal speakers, whether or not I had my external speakers turned on. Maybe it's just with recent Macs that this happens, I dunno.
 
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