Bell character

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Bell character is an ASCII control character, code 7 (^G). When it is sent to a printer or a terminal, nothing is printed, but an audible signal is emitted instead. Terminal emulator windows often flash briefly to show the user where the alert occurred.

A bell code also exists in Baudot code, which has been used in teleprinters in some form since 1874. Sending a bell code would get the attention of the teleprinter operator at the other end of the line.

In the C programming language, the bell character is represented as '\a' ("alert" or "audible").

In the Windows Command prompt, as with the earlier PC-DOS or MS-DOS command prompts on which it is based, the user can type the word "echo" followed by a CTRL+G, which will appear as

echo ^G

and when the user presses enter, the computer will emit a beep sound.