From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Feb  6 01:20:30 1997
Return-Path: <owner-hackers>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA24993
          for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 6 Feb 1997 01:20:30 -0800 (PST)
Received: from freenet.hamilton.on.ca (0@main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.65])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA24938
          for <hackers@freebsd.org>; Thu, 6 Feb 1997 01:20:12 -0800 (PST)
From: hoek@freenet.hamilton.on.ca
Received: from james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca [199.212.94.66]) by freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id EAA13333; Thu, 6 Feb 1997 04:20:14 -0500 (EST)
Received: (from ac199@localhost) by james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (8.7.5/8.7.3) id EAA10754; Thu, 6 Feb 1997 04:22:17 -0500 (EST)
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 04:22:17 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199702060922.EAA10754@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>
X-Mailer: slnr v.2.13 as ported to FreeBSD
To: gjennejohn@frt.dec.com
cc: hackers@freebsd.org, packrat@iinet.net.au
Subject: Re: ping(8) 
Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

In Email, garyj@frt.dec.com wrote:
> packrat@iinet.net.au writes:
> > 
> > Something like '-a': audible tone for pings.
> > 
> 
> seems resaonable to me. Why not '-b' for "bell" ? Seems more
> intuitive somwhow.

printf(1) uses \a for bell, so that could arguably be precedance of some
sort.  OTOH, bc(1) uses a \b for bell, so...  And, of course, there's the
"bell" mode (not "audible" mode) of ftp(1) and "nobeep", not "noaudio" in
csh(1).  Not to forget, either, ex(1)'s "set eb", not "set ea" to turn on
errorbells.  Most incriminating is kbdcontrol(1)'s "-b" option, though... 

"-a" does seem nicer, regardless... 


-- 
tIM...HOEk
"[Your] approach is in error; it is bad engineering methodology."
                              - Terry Lambert.