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 communicator's 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.
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