Subject: [linux-audio-dev] EVO status...was: (open-source like hardware)
From: Richard A. Smith (rsmith_AT_bitworks.com)
Date: Tue Jan 15 2002 - 20:08:23 EET
On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 20:43:16 -0500, Paul Davis wrote:
>>Benno's disk sampler evo? would be cool :)
>
>yeah, it would, except that all of its developers have vanished off
>the face of the earth and nothing has happened to it in at least 6
>months. not to mention that the hard part - designing and building a
>GUI - wasn't even started. at least we could get inspiration from
Well being one of those people I guess I should speak up and debunk
the nasty rumor that I have "vanished off the face of the earth"
before it spreads. I'm just happen to be in lurker mode now.
Since we are on the subject guess now is a good time to yap about the
current status. Or lack of current status perhaps.
My last contact withs benno (who has the sampler code) was last
summer when I help provide him with some samples for demo he did at
LinuxTag. He mentioned that he has worked on the sampler code and
has improved it some but hasn't made another release yet.
Further on the sampler side. I have purchased the patent and
challenge history for both of the patents held by Conexant and
Nemesis for a computer/disk based sampler. The patents are very
broad and IMHO very bogus.
I have also been in contacted by Nemesis and they have indicated that
if I were to do anything that infringes on thier patent(s) they
_WILL_ litigate. My initial inquiries with a patent attorney
indicates that a typical patent fight runs about a Million dollars.
A little more than I can afford currently.
There is an option where you can request the patent to re-evaluate
the patent. However, if they still don't find any problems then you
just made the patent _much_ harder to invalidate. Better to actually
challenge it. Just more $$
Originally I was all about messing with the sampler stuff despite the
patents. But after all the stuff with the Dmitry Sklyarov case I am
a little leery of any public involvement with the sampler code.
There were several people on this list that thought they had
references to prior art. If you have that please send it to me. At
some point I would like to challenge the patent(s) but not unless I
have lots of evidence that its invalid.
As far as the GUI goes... There actually was some initial work done.
Just no code. I have lots of prototype interface screens that my
buddy Mike Bailey designed using Word 2000. Its actually quite
impressive what he was able to do. The screens are all graphic
images he built and they are linked together so that if you click on
a "button" it actually brings up another screen. I despise MS
products but never-the-less I was impressed. I would post it
somewhere but its huge like 50 Megs or so and the conversion to html
mucks it all up. (Thats MS for you)
The GUI stuff pretty much stopped right after he did that. Mike got
a new baby, and a new job. And turns out that the new GigaStudio
does just about everything he was asking for in the EVO system. So
with lack of time and lack of motivation very little movement
happened.
I would like to code up a proto of the interface though. I was
planning on trying to do it with python and something like wxPython.
Mostly because Python is my new favorite language and I need a good
graphics project to work on.
Gonna be a while before I mess with it though. Lots of other
projects with much higher priority.
Anyway if any one else wants to mess with the GUI proto stuff that I
have let me know and I'll see about getting some sort of description
on what's what and set it up for download somewhere.
-- Richard A. Smith Bitworks, Inc. rsmith_AT_bitworks.com 501.846.5777 x204 Sr. Design Engineer http://www.bitworks.com
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