This circuit simulates a chime similar to the sound many cars make when the keys are left in the ignition. The bottom two gates form a squarewave audio oscillator that drives the base of the 2N4401, turning it on and off at an audio rate. The top two gates produce a short low-going pulse about once per second that discharges the 10 uF capacitor through the diode. The voltage then jumps up and slowly decays through the 15 k collector resistor when the 2N4401 is conducting. The result is a squarewave on the collector of the 2N4401 that jumps up quickly then decays slowly. The darlington emitter-follower buffers the squarewave and drives a small speaker.
The tone frequency is set by the 1000 pF capacitor and the cadence of the chime is set by the 0.1 uF capacitor. The 10 uF capacitor determines how quickly the chime dies out and the 3.3 k/3.3 uF soften the attack time of the leading edge of the chime. The volume is set by the 22 ohm resistor and 100 uF bypass capacitor. These values may be experimentally varied to produce the desired sound.
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