Re: [LAU] (no subject)

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 02:09:47PM +0100, Karl Hammar wrote:
> ken@email-addr-hidden:
> > On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:33:45AM +0100, Karl Hammar wrote:
> ...
> > > My goals is "just" to extend another project (industrial i/o).
> > > What would your goals be ?
> ...
> > The original thread converged on a goal pretty quickly:
> > an inexpensive,
> yes, if possible, but not one of my major goals
> > multi-channel audio interface
> ack
> > which is open hardware and software,
> amen
> > and uses Gig Ethernet as its physical connection method.
> a 200MHz processor (as in my project) cannot possible drive a
> gigabit ethernet, if someone has a better choise of processor, please
> speak up
>
> > So, if I were going to put the goal simply:
> > I'd like a Focusrite Saffire (or equivalent) that runs over
> > Ethernet, please :-)
> > Price-wise, it'd be nice if it cost the same or less than
> > equivalent USB 2.0 product.
> > Latency-wise, comparable with USB 2.0.
>
> Can you summarize theese in more technical terms.
>
> > In terms of how many I/O, I think that was still being calculated
> > and experimentation was going to be required. Obviously options for
> > 4, 8, or 16 I/O would be nice.
>
> Ok.
>
>
> To be honest with you all, for me, this is not about to compete with
> products on the market or to sale and market a product.
>
> This is to do something, hopefully; together with (hopefully) other
> fellow hw and sw hackers. To make it so, I'd like the construction to
> be sufficiently simply so that a large enought share of hw hackers
> can make the thing themself. In technical terms, I'll restrict myself
> to double layer pcb's and non-BGA chips. That does not mean that the
> design or the specification has to be of low quality.
>
> Low price would be nice but is not a goal at this point.
>
>

This came out of the frequent questions like, "Which USB2.0 audio interfaces work with Linux?". The answer, of course, is "None of them". And Firewire ports are becoming more scarce on new laptops.

My question came out of worry that we could be left with a situation where no pro-quality, affordable (i.e. comparable in cost to USB2.0 interfaces), multi-channel audio interfaces are available for Linux users anymore. So, in a few years, goodbye Linux audio, hello Windoze or OSX if you have a new laptop.

I guess that's my main, perhaps my only concern. From there we ended up with the idea of an Ethernet-based interface, which will be a cool project, and an open/free hardware design. I'm very happy to see it moving forward, and will be very curious to see how it turns out.

-ken
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Received on Tue Dec 8 12:15:02 2009