Hi Jerry,
Here's an idea for ALF, since it will control the whole system how about incorporating the windows tones into Hal as an option. It would be cool to have Hal announce the default tone, asterisk, program fault, etc. That shouldn't be any problem for a stepper like you. Most of my tones are customized anyway, If I could tell Hal "for Windows asterisk Say "", For Windows close program say "", for Windows critical stop say"". See what I mean, couldn't be too difficult and it could be another plug in to be selected for folks who don't want to select it. Hal could be announcing fax received, print complete, mail received, low battery warnings, net meeting connections...all that stuff!
And, more difficult, the ability to speculate or theorize based on current data would expand his lifelike qualities[:p]Daireaux