Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Fwd: Creative's IP concerns
From: Paul Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2002 - 16:51:29 EET
>After actually looking at the rme site, it appears that their cards
>aren't actually a good example of openness for creative to follow;
>they're concerned about the dsp functions on their chips (reverb and
>what-not.) Still, it shows them some of their competitors are not so
>secretive.
precisely. rme are quite happy releasing specs to right a driver; they
are not planning on releasing specs to write new FX. its worth noting
that rme have said publically that it took them quite a long time and
quite a lot of really deep thinking to understand how to use an FPGA
for what they are now doing. i don't know if this is accurate, or if
it means that they were FPGA/DSP illiterate to start with, but if
true, i could understand why they don't want to reveal what they
learned (even though i don't agree with that mentality).
>I'd still like to know if there are any other companies out there giving
>out specs for their dsp chips.. can anyone canonically tell me yay or
>nay?
Yamaha used to. I have a the spec for a 5-6 year old chip that was
used in the Tropez+. However, it too relied on microcode being
preloaded, and no information was available on how to write or design
the microcode.
OTOH, I would imagine that both the SHARC and Motorola 56K chipsets
can be considered pretty "open" given that there are gcc ports for
both of them.
--p
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