The Windows clipboard can be accessed as /dev/clipboard from the bash command line. Now I can do
[weiqi@gao] $ head -1 ChangeLog > /dev/clipboard
to put the first line of the ChangeLog into the clipboard, and !!cat /dev/clipboard in Vim to paste it into the CVS log:
CVS: ----------------------------------------------------------------------
CVS: Enter Log. Lines beginning with `CVS:' are removed automatically
CVS:
CVS: Committing in ...
~~~
:.!cat /dev/clipboard
The ascii command prints the ASCII table to stdout, including the beep.