Andrew Gaylard wrote:
So now I'm curious. Why was it built this way? And why do released images have this preference off?
Purely historical coincidence. Things used to work more smoothly on Mac OS 7-9 if we kept sending silence instead of turning the whole soundsystem on and off. I added the preference since on Windows ('95 and '98) access to the sound device is exclusive so having had Squeak play a sound once would make it inaccessible for other apps.
I don't think any of these concerns are valid any longer.
Cheers, - Andreas