[TAG] 2-cent Tip: audio ping

[Jim Jackson]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2008, Ben Okopnik wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 09:58:22PM -0500, Lew Pitcher wrote:
>> The late Mike Muus (the "inventor" of the ping program) has an amusing
>> story on his webpage (http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html)
>>
>> "The best ping story I've ever heard was told to me at a USENIX
>> conference, where a network administrator with an intermittent Ethernet
>> had linked the ping program to his vocoder program, in essence writing:
>>
>>     ping goodhost | sed -e 's/.*/ping/' | vocoder
>>
>> He wired the vocoder's output into his office stereo and turned up the
>> volume as loud as he could stand. The computer sat there shouting "Ping,
>> ping, ping..." once a second, and he wandered through the building
>> wiggling Ethernet connectors until the sound stopped. And that's how he
>> found the intermittent failure. "
>
> Yep; I'd heard that story a long time ago. Which is one of the reasons I
> was so pleased with myself when I wrote that script. :)
>
> I think I'll search the Net for a recording of someone going "Ping!", or
> maybe create one. After all, We Must Follow Precedent. :)

Judicious use of festival, and the computer will speak to you :-)