Comment Re:OH WOW! (Score 1) 166
Being a developer and enthusiast of linux audio, I admit it it is not something exceptional. Just a multi channel sample player driven by the serial port. But it is quite demanding in terms of resources.
we must be able to access about 300MByte of CD quality samples with low latency ( 10msec) and be able to play 16 simultaneous audio clips with virtually no delay.
The "audio server" software I wrote fires up about 4 threads, 2 for controlling the audio cards, 1 for monitoring the serial input and one thread that can comunicate with an external GUI where the operator can add/remove samples, edit parameters and asssign them to the various actions.
The box runs X-Window when the operator needs the GUI, but normally linux boots in text mode to save RAM resources.
The event logging on hard disk is done using lower priority threads so that it does not interfere with audio playback.
So tell me how to do all this stuff with a 386 with DOS, kinda hopeless eh ? ;-)
(plus .... good luck in finding drivers for 24 bit multi I/O audio cards)
Could we have implemented it by using a Windows Box ?
Yes but why spend additional $$ for Windows licenses, bitch about instabilities, need to run the GUI all the time, binary sound card drivers issues, need to buy development tools like compilers etc. (no sorry, I do not want to use cygwin on Windows).
Benno Senoner
we must be able to access about 300MByte of CD quality samples with low latency ( 10msec) and be able to play 16 simultaneous audio clips with virtually no delay.
The "audio server" software I wrote fires up about 4 threads, 2 for controlling the audio cards, 1 for monitoring the serial input and one thread that can comunicate with an external GUI where the operator can add/remove samples, edit parameters and asssign them to the various actions.
The box runs X-Window when the operator needs the GUI, but normally linux boots in text mode to save RAM resources.
The event logging on hard disk is done using lower priority threads so that it does not interfere with audio playback.
So tell me how to do all this stuff with a 386 with DOS, kinda hopeless eh ?
(plus
Could we have implemented it by using a Windows Box ?
Yes but why spend additional $$ for Windows licenses, bitch about instabilities, need to run the GUI all the time, binary sound card drivers issues, need to buy development tools like compilers etc. (no sorry, I do not want to use cygwin on Windows).
Benno Senoner
