RE: [linux-audio-dev] open-source like hardware

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Subject: RE: [linux-audio-dev] open-source like hardware
From: Fred Gleason (fredg_AT_www.wava.com)
Date: Mon Jan 14 2002 - 17:55:26 EET


On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Pieter wrote:

> My point of view is that when a board is designed and all specs are
> released, that enough people would be spending time writing (embedded)
> software for the thing. I know that, if such device would exist, I
> would. My 'plan' was/is to create a board that is reprogrammable, much
> like bios updates on PC's. That way there is a framework for all sorts
> of sound stuff. Such a board could for example be programmed as an
> aRTS accelerator, a multichannel soundcard, a MPEG encoder/decoder, a
> reverb unit, ... I know the creativity of the open-source community
> is unlimited (all of these things are already present on linux).

You might want to look into some of the products at AudioScience
(www.audioscience.com). I've used some of it around here, and it's
high-end DSP stuff. They do support Linux (unfortunately, using their own
proprietary driver and then only under NDA). The point though, is that
the driver works by uploading the DSP code to the card as part of the
initialization, rather than being burned into firmware. That being the
case, it sounds like it might not be too difficult to customize the DSP
loadup to do these various specialized things Pieter is talking about.
Having a general-purpose DSP platform with high-quality analog and AES-3
ports attached could be quite handy...

The challenge, of course, will be to get them to release specs. Last time
I spoke with them (a couple of years ago) they seemed quite open to
supporting Linux, but were concerned about protecting their IP on the DSP
side (hence the NDA). I get the feeling that they are approachable
though.

Cheers!

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