[SeaBIOS] [PATCH v3 1/2] boot.c: delay exiting boot if menu key is ESC

[Kevin O'Connor]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 12:44:31PM -0500, Timothy Pearson wrote:
> On 03/12/2015 12:38 PM, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> >
> >
> >On 12/03/2015 18:23, Timothy Pearson wrote:
> >>Any chance SeaBIOS could emit a short chirp when it receives the ESC to
> >>boot menu request?  That would solve the "hammering blindly at the keys"
> >>problem while the video is initialising, at least on systems with a PC
> >>speaker/buzzer still installed.
> >
> >Sure.  You can send a patch and I'll review it.
> >
> >Paolo
> 
> I was merely offering a suggestion for UX design,
> 
> The only coreboot-compatible board I have (and by extension
> SeaBIOS-compatible) does not properly initialize the PC speaker until some
> time after Linux starts, so I am currently unable to produce/test such a
> patch; normally I'd be happy to send something in.

Traditionally, one can write a 0x07 (BEL) character to the screen and
the vgabios will beep the speaker.  However, that wont work with
SeaVGABIOS (as it never implemented the code), and it's possible some
factory vgabios's will just try and hand it off to the main BIOS video
routines (which SeaBIOS doesn't implement).  But, it's easy enough to
try if you're curious - just printf("\a").

-Kevin