Like computers, cars and PDAs,cell phonesstarted out as purely functional pieces of technology, but quickly evolved plenty of fun frills to keep their users entertained. Today's phones have built-in video games, specialized background pictures, switchable faceplates and, of course, customizable ringtones.
A ringtone version of your new favorite song does serve some purpose, of course -- it lets you distinguish your own phone's ring from other phones ringing around you -- but more than anything else, it's a chance to add personality to technology.
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在本文中,我们将看到手机铃声都是什么about and we'll find out how you can add new tunes to your phone (if it's compatible). As we'll see, it's incredibly easy to find and add a song you like and load it up.
Ringtone Basics
If you've readHow Cell Phones Work, you know the central "brain" of a cell phone is a small微处理器. Just like the microprocessor in a computer, this unit controls everything that the cell phone does, working from information stored in the phone'smemory.
At its core, a ringtone is simply a computer program stored on the cell phone's memory chip. This program's sole purpose in life is to tell the microprocessor what the phone'sspeakersystem should do when the phone'sreceiverpicks up an incoming call.
Ringtone-capable phones already have a range of notes stored in memory (that is, they include information on speaker vibrationfrequenciesthat will produce particular tones). The ringtone program only has to tell the microprocessor which of these notes to play, in which order and at what speed. By adjusting these variables, the microprocessor can play an infinite number of ringtones.
The clearest example of this sort of programming language is theRinging Tone Text Transfer Language(RTTTL) format, developed by Nokia. Here's a typical section of RTTTL code, with a description of what eachbitmeans.
In order to enable a ringtone on your phone, you just have to get the appropriate program into the phone's memory. In the next section, we'll look at the different ways you can do this.
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