| Mike Berry wrote:
> Cheaper is one thing, but better is more important!
> And as far as my opinion goes, cheaper is the only thing that Wintel has going
> for it (unless you are a commercial developer and the size of the installed
> user base makes your eyes light up)
Mike, I think that you (and most of the others who have responded to
this statement) leave out a rather significant factor in assessing what
you call "Wintel" machines: Linux !
Are you aware of the number of Mac music and sound programs running
under ARDI Executor ? Did you know that the WINE project has listed
reports of running Cubase, Cakewalk 5, Finale, and Sound Forge under
WINE ? Did you know that DOSemu runs most of the excellent DOS MIDI
software such as Sequencer Plus and M/pc ? Do you know how many native
sound and MIDI applications and languages run under Linux ? Please take
a look at my Linux soundapps page for a good survey, you may be
surprised at what you find.
I'm not slagging anyone else's choice of machinery. I figure, if it gets
your job done, be happy and hope that others are getting their work done
and are happy with their choices too.I just wanted to point out that PC
hardware is not restricted to running what M$ wants you to believe is
the only worthwhile stuff out there. Anyway, IMO "better" is what gets
_your_ work done to _your_ satisfaction with the least amount of hassle.
Fair enough ?
Just my two drachmas...
== Dave Phillips
http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/index.html
http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linux_soundapps.html
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Subject: (off-topic) future of non-Wintel,etc.
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 19:50:36 +0530
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Wotcha!
Ken Locarnini wrote-
>>I have worked a little bit on SGI Indys, and I certainly admire the
>>machinery, but I think it is a mistake at this point to develop music
>>software on what is rapidly becoming a niche platform.
>>
>I held on to my Amiga 500 way too long in the same hopes..............
Presently I use a PowerMac G3.But about SGI,Digital Alpha,Sun,etc.
-I have two words: 64-bit! (Don't forget to add the combination of
pre-emptive mulitasking,muliti-proccessor support,etc.)
Now I'm no authority on computer architectures/OSes (though I have one
word that keeps popping up whenever I have to use a WinHel,"Why ?") but
isn't a 64-bit system unspeakably more powerful/useful than 32-bit ?
Wouldn't it be great if those 64-bit workstations were available at
about the price point as present 32-bit systems ?
We'd all be able to do things that we struggle with on 32-bit,like
real-time DSP,Synthesis,etc.with relative ease.
My hope is that increasing numbers of people will start moving to 64-bit
workstations,thereby driving the price down,spurring development of
easier to use Operating system interfaces,etc.
Speaking of low price points-SGI offers an O2 system for $5902
with:17"mon,180MHz MIPS5000 proc,512k cache,64MB SDRAM,2GB UWSCSI,100B-T
Ether,12X CD,32-bit graphics,etc.
Then again I could be wrong about some of this,if so, call me an idiot
and get on with it.....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Drew Yves Skyfyre,neophyte microtonal computer musician and afficionado
of the avant-garde.Goa,India. e-mail:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
"Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air."-Sylvia Plath
"Do the Monkey with me."-Johnny Bravo on the Cartoon Network.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
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Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 14:57:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory Boduch
To: steele
Cc: csound@maths.ex.ac.uk
Subject: Re: (off-topic) future of non-Wintel,etc.
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> Wouldn't it be great if those 64-bit workstations were available at
> about the price point as present 32-bit systems ?
> We'd all be able to do things that we struggle with on 32-bit,like
> real-time DSP,Synthesis,etc.with relative ease.
Yes they are. Follow links to vendors from www.alphapowered.com. Some sell
500 MHz Alpha PC164pc systems for < $2,000 (running Linux, FreeBSD, etc.,
or WinNT.) Digital I/O is supported in OSS/Alpha for Zefiro ZA2, and
other digital I/O cards.
gb
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Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 14:04:32 -0600 (CST)
From: Micheal Allen Thompson
To: Gregory Boduch
Cc: steele , csound@maths.ex.ac.uk
Subject: Re: (off-topic) future of non-Wintel,etc.
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But Linux, FreeBSD, WinNT are not 64-bit OS's.... so even though the
processor is 64-bit the OS is still 32-bit....
Michael
On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Gregory
Boduch wrote:
> > Wouldn't it be great if those 64-bit workstations were available at
> > about the price point as present 32-bit systems ?
> > We'd all be able to do things that we struggle with on 32-bit,like
> > real-time DSP,Synthesis,etc.with relative ease.
>
> Yes they are. Follow links to vendors from www.alphapowered.com. Some sell
> 500 MHz Alpha PC164pc systems for < $2,000 (running Linux, FreeBSD, etc.,
> or WinNT.) Digital I/O is supported in OSS/Alpha for Zefiro ZA2, and
> other digital I/O cards.
>
> gb
>
>
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Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 22:43:36 +0100
From: khalid
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Micheal Allen Thompson wrote:
> But Linux, FreeBSD, WinNT are not 64-bit OS's.... so even though the
> processor is 64-bit the OS is still 32-bit....
Where did you get your information from?
Linux AXP (Linux on Alpha) kernel is definitely a clean 64 bit kernel.
It's still possible to build 32-bit apps if you have the sources but
you usually have when you're running Linux.
If you have some question about alpha-linux try:
axp-list@redhat.com
I also want to point out that you don't need emulators on linux.
I'm using it *exclusively* for my personal stuff since years.
I have lots of audio-editors too choose and well, i use sequencers
seldomly but there's lots of them out there. When i want to do
software synthesis i can choose between csound, clm , cmix and
probably a lot more if i ever wanted to find out.
kd
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To: khalid
Cc: csound@maths.ex.ac.uk
Subject: Re: (off-topic) future of non-Wintel,etc.
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 27 Mar 1998 22:43:36 +0100."
<351C1D88.1589BB2D@uni-essen.de>
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Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 23:23:30 -0500
From: Ed Hall
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Not quite so off-topic: I recently tried to get Csound 3.47 going on
a 533MHz Alpha running Linux, and ran into 64-bit alignment problems.
It seems that a number of Csound's data structures are allocated on
32-bit (== sizeof float) boundaries, though they contain pointers
(which are 64-bits on Alpha and must be so aligned). After some digging,
it's apparent that Csound insists on packing its own data structures
for memory efficiency reasons, with no provision for memory alignment
beyond 32-bits. Although some Alpha OSes (including Linux) will handle
the resulting alignment trap, performance is severely affected.
There are a couple of issues here:
1) 64-bit alignment is a must on Alpha (and likely other 64-bit chips).
My 233MHz AMD K6 runs rings around the Alpha due to the time spent
handling alignment traps in the kernel.
2) Given that many systems (including Pentiums) are more efficient with
data alignment of 64-bits (or greater), and that memory is now a lot
cheaper than it used to be, the whole idea of dense-packing data
structures in Csound deserves some reconsideration. Choosing speed
over compactness should at least be an option.
Tracking down the alignment traps which occurred during the processing
of one particular *.orc and *.sco set, I managed to patch up some
of the major alignment problems in score and orchestra processing in
fairly short order; the Alpha is now 3 times faster than the K6 (which
for Csound, at least, is as fast as comparable Pentiums). But there are
no doubt other parts of Csound, unused by this particular *.orc and *.sco,
which still aren't 64-bit clean.
I'll be happy to share my patches with anyone else attempting to get
Csound going on Alpha, and I'd be interested in hearing from anyone
else who has made progress along these lines.
-Ed Hall
edhall@ayched.com
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Subject: Re: (off-topic) future of non-Wintel,etc.
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 16:23:15 +0530
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Sorry for more off-topic banter,but I may not be the only one on the
list who's ,well,clueless,but getting some valuable info from this
thread.
>> But Linux, FreeBSD, WinNT are not 64-bit OS's.... so even though the
>> processor is 64-bit the OS is still 32-bit...
What about the native OSes,Digital Unix,Solaris,Irix,etc. ? Excuse me if
this is a stupid question. (speaking of which,can anyone reccomend a good
book/resource that would get a beginner started on serious programming
in different languages?)
khalid :
>Linux AXP (Linux on Alpha) kernel is definitely a clean 64 bit kernel.
>It's still possible to build 32-bit apps if you have the sources but
>you usually have when you're running Linux.
>
Neat! Any pointers to resources for music/audio apps for Linux AXP ?
>If you have some question about alpha-linux try:
> axp-list@redhat.com
-Assume this is a mailing list,so wouldn't I need to subscribe?How?
>
Gregory :
>Follow links to vendors from www.alphapowered.com. Some sell
>500 MHz Alpha PC164pc systems for < $2,000 (running Linux, FreeBSD, etc.,
>or WinNT.) Digital I/O is supported in OSS/Alpha for Zefiro ZA2, and
>other digital I/O cards.
-Thanks for the info.
Ed:
> the whole idea of dense-packing data
> structures in Csound deserves some reconsideration. Choosing speed
> over compactness should at least be an option.
Most interesting.Perhaps it's time some interprising tinkerers got down
to writing/port 64-bit apps.,etc.Let us know when anyone gets a version
of Csound optimised for Alpha or other 64-bit proc cessors.
Personally I'm just a beginner at all this.But my point is that if we
made the jump over to pure 64-bit computing,we'd have a lot of
possibilities open to feed our imaginations and for our imaginations to
feed.
-Drew Skyfyre
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Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 19:44:54 +0000
From: BUYO-BUYO-IGOR
Reply-To: igor@db3.so-net.or.jp
Organization: SaRiGaMa's Oil Vending Orchestra
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To: csound
Subject: OIL
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Programmers!
BUYO-BUYO-IGOR have dedicated a web-page to TXT2SOMETHING &
SOMETHING2TXT culture.
TXT will become OIL=Open Interpretable Language...
and
SOMETHING2SOMETHING will be something very simple to make possible.
Won't someone create..TXT2ORC&SCO thang?
Me?...No..I can't...
The URL is now at:
http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~buyobuyo/oil.html
Any info that can have something to do with this sort of thing will be
welcome....
Suggestions?
--
------------------8<-----------------------
BUYO-BUYO-IGOR
SaRiGaMa's Oil Vending Orchestra
Japanese HomePage=http://come.to/sarigama
International HomePage=http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~buyobuyo
E-Mail=gianthead@bigfoot.com
Jammin' on Mar29,May24
Plans=http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~buyobuyo/sarisari/forsari.html
Also on Jun28
Plans=http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~buyobuyo/gamagama/forgama.html
Birth of "World Wide Deb" Jam (=non SaRiGaMa) on Apr26
What?=http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~buyobuyo/bands/wwd.html
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Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 06:33:57 -0500
From: Jean Piche
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To: steele , csound
Subject: Re: (off-topic) future of non-Wintel,etc.
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steele wrote:
> >> But Linux, FreeBSD, WinNT are not 64-bit OS's.... so even though the
> >> processor is 64-bit the OS is still 32-bit...
>
> What about the native OSes,Digital Unix,Solaris,Irix,etc. ? Excuse me if
> this is a stupid question. (speaking of which,can anyone reccomend a good
> book/resource that would get a beginner started on serious programming
> in different languages?)
Irix, Solaris, Digital UNix are all UNix variants that will run a native
windowing system on top of a fairly standard Unix Sys5 kernel. Some run only
X-based ressources, others have their own (Irix, SOlaris...) Depending on age,
all these systems have migrated to full 64-bit. However, and this is important
for the present purpose, the applications you use must *also* be compiled to
take advantage the 64-bit hardware and OS. Most 32-bit apps (and even 16-bit
apps) will run under 64-bit pathes but will not be able to avail themselves of
performance improvements inherent in the architecture...
WRT programming, there are now so many programming languages that it is very
difficult to recommend one without asking: What do you want to program? For core
signal processing apps (like Csound) or for clocked output (Midi sequencers), it
is difficult to avoid C as this will yeild the most compact and efficient code.
For interface purposes where speed is not critical, tcltk and java are both fine
choices although I prefer the former. Lest we forget, lisp has much to recommend
it, including a full synthesis-processing-composing-notating system out of
Stanford (CLM-CM-CMN)
>
> khalid :
> >Linux AXP (Linux on Alpha) kernel is definitely a clean 64 bit kernel.
> >It's still possible to build 32-bit apps if you have the sources but
> >you usually have when you're running Linux.
> >
> Neat! Any pointers to resources for music/audio apps for Linux AXP ?
> >If you have some question about alpha-linux try:
> > axp-list@redhat.com
> -Assume this is a mailing list,so wouldn't I need to subscribe?How?
If the list runs under majordomo, you would normally send a message to
majordomo@redhat.com and put this in the body of the message:
subscribe axp-list
If it runs under listserv, I dont know...
check this page for Linux:
http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linux_soundapps.html
> Gregory :
> >Follow links to vendors from www.alphapowered.com. Some sell
> >500 MHz Alpha PC164pc systems for < $2,000 (running Linux, FreeBSD, etc.,
> >or WinNT.) Digital I/O is supported in OSS/Alpha for Zefiro ZA2, and
> >other digital I/O cards.
> -Thanks for the info.
Ed Hall has answered this. Also be aware that the Digital speed monsters have a
clouded future (see Compaq takeover), but then again, so does everything thats
not Microsoft.
> Ed:
> > the whole idea of dense-packing data
> > structures in Csound deserves some reconsideration. Choosing speed
> > over compactness should at least be an option.
> Most interesting.Perhaps it's time some interprising tinkerers got down
> to writing/port 64-bit apps.,etc.Let us know when anyone gets a version
> of Csound optimised for Alpha or other 64-bit proc cessors.
>
> Personally I'm just a beginner at all this.But my point is that if we
> made the jump over to pure 64-bit computing,we'd have a lot of
> possibilities open to feed our imaginations and for our imaginations to
> feed.
That, along with a full csound rewrite, has been on everyone's list for years...
There is more than one reason it has not happened...
err.. correction: there has been a full rewrite: Extended-Csound. That runs only
on Sharc/ADI hardware
________________________________________________________
Jean Piche
Universite de Montreal
http://mistral.ere.umontreal.ca/~pichej
http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/electro/CEC/
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Uh..It's me again.
Can someone please tell me what Extended Csound is and also,does anyone
here use an Analog Devices DSP board ? I understand it runs Csound
?Wonder what it costs ...
Later,
Drew
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of the avant-garde.Goa,India. e-mail:
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Hello to all,
I am a beginner in the work with c-sound.
I am interested in beginning to study it, but I need them to recommend me
the most convenient way of making it.
I have a pc pentium 100mhz, 16 mb ram, with windows 95
Thanks in advance.
Hugo Druetta
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I've decided I will live dangerously and jump in on this thread. It is very
interesting, but a little academic for me, as I can't afford any of the systems that
are being discussed!
> Irix, Solaris, Digital UNix are all UNix variants that will run a native
> windowing system on top of a fairly standard Unix Sys5 kernel. Some run only
> X-based ressources, others have their own (Irix, SOlaris...) Depending on age,
> all these systems have migrated to full 64-bit. However, and this is important
> for the present purpose, the applications you use must *also* be compiled to
> take advantage the 64-bit hardware and OS. Most 32-bit apps (and even 16-bit
> apps) will run under 64-bit pathes but will not be able to avail themselves of
> performance improvements inherent in the architecture...
The 64bit alignment issue is one of the main reasons for the SDIF initiative at
CNMAT. This for me highlights the problem for us - 64bits are all very well, but so
much of our raw material is still at 16bit granularity, now edging towards 32 with
the f/p audio formats. So just how efficient is a 64bit machine going to be jiggling
all those shorts around? ( It must be even worse for text editing - unless, I
suppose, we all move over to Unicode). How easy will it be to maintain source-code
portability across machines with such different architectures, when everyone wants
Csound optimized for their own machine?
I have always assumed that these machines are targeted at the server market, where
the primary task is to shift huge blocks of data as quickly as possible. Even
Rhapsody, I have heard, is apparently being 'realigned' to this market, and may not
be released for use on 'ordinary' machines. A pity, as I was looking forward to this
as a significant new platform for digital audio ('At last - a Mac with a commandline
interface'!).
> err.. correction: there has been a full rewrite: Extended-Csound. That runs only
> on Sharc/ADI hardware
Hmm, well, I have the Analog card, and I am looking at the APIs which send a full
commandline to the card, the usage messages, and the 'instr alloc' messages, and the
error messages, and the absence of re-entrancy, and it seems to me that this is
still a port, and not quite a 'full rewrite', yet. Depending on which bits you look
at, the SHARC is a 32bit or 48bit chip, certainly not 64.
Just my eight-bytes worth...
Richard Dobson
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