feep

	This is the JargonFile ^(V4.00) entry for feep - Next: feeper, Prev: featurectomy
:feep: /feep/ 1. /n./ The soft electronic bell sound of a display terminal (except for a VT-52); a beep (in fact, the microcomputer world seems to prefer beep). 2. /vi./ To cause the display to make a feep sound. ASR-33s (the original TTYs) do not feep; they have mechanical bells that ring. Alternate forms: beep, bleep, or just about anything suitably onomatopoeic. (Jeff MacNelly, in his comic strip "Shoe", uses the word eep for sounds made by computer terminals and video games; this is perhaps the closest written approximation yet.) The term breedle was sometimes heard at SAIL, where the terminal bleepers are not particularly soft (they sound more like the musical equivalent of a raspberry or Bronx cheer; for a close approximation, imagine the sound of a Star Trek communicators beep lasting for five seconds). The feeper on a VT-52 has been compared to the sound of a 52 Chevy stripping its gears. See also ding.
* (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996* - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain)*