disconnecting might be easier.

Qbix wrote:

disconnecting might be easier.

- I dont't think so) MAybe it's better to connect a electric regulator ... )

There's no way to 'disable' it. Or well, the PC speaker is 'disabled' when you don't hear anything.
It is hardwired to one of the outputs of the PIT. As soon as it is enabled, sound is heard. So the first thing every game or other program does to generate a sound, is to enable the speaker. Then it disables it again for silence.

In theory you could 'disable' the speaker on a 386+ by using its v86 abilities to virtualize the PC speaker port, and just ignore the data.
But really, disconnecting is a much simpler and more reliable way.

In non-protected mode, anyone can write to the PIT via OUT 0x42/0x43 and therefore you cannot really disable the speaker. In protected mode the OS can probably be set to ignore those writes.

I guess what I am trying to say is I do not think it is possible to disable the speaker system wide for DOS.

Maybe so... I think somewhere on retro-software sites I saw such a program about 3-4 years ago, but now couln't find it again...

If you don't want to unplug it, you can route it through a button on your case to disconnect it from the motherboard when you don't want to hear the beeps. Turbo button would serve if you don't use it.

As far as I understand hardware, disabling speaker is as hard as making RTC clock stop ticking. It's an essential part of PC technology.

Why not just disconnect the PC Speaker connector? What is the purpose for a PC Speaker "disabler" in the first place anyway? How important is it for daily operations? What is the priority?

or adding switch so you can turn it on/off easily.

Maybe this works, but it's ancient:

http://ftp.freenet.de/pub/ftp.simtel.net/pub/ … sysutl/sil2.zip

It mutes sounds, doesn't disable it.

Some ISA sound cards have PC speaker connector. Mixer of such cards allow setting volume of speaker to 0, besides acoustics volume control.