It's not as simple as that. The card is not an end-user piece of equipment, where
all you have to do is write ordinary data to port adresses. The drivers do a lot
of host-side work, not least linking the opcodes for an orchestra into a SHARC
Csound executable, which is then downloaded to the card. This requires the use of
the g21k  linker, which as I noted before, is almost certainly not available for
the Mac; it is a commandline tool. Hardware developers are used to such an
environment, and the PC (like other 'industry standard'  machines such as Sun
workstations) is long-established in that role. For better or worse, the Mac  is
far less well-adapted to that role.

Also, the drivers have to jump through quite a few hoops to enable the card to
emulate a conventional soundcard. Some of those hoops are not very rounded, or
even stable; if the card is to be developed (as I hope) as a soundcard, as well as
an OEM product, substantive changes to the overall design will need to be made.

I am also under the clear impression that ADI are not ready to release the
necessary low-level board details yet; you might need to use something other than
ink to sign the non-disclosure agreement!

Some of the enhancements I have asked for, like multi-channel file support,
involve updates to the Csound code itself, and the board-side interface, as well
as to the drivers, and I can well understand that ADI would want to wait until
things are rather more consolidated before developing, or even encouraging,
support on other platforms. So let us all encourage ADI to get it right on the PC;
only then it will be ready to port to the Mac, and only then will Mac developers
know what they have to port.

I don't know if Scotty Vercoe reads, or subscribes to, this list. No doubt we will
all find out sooner or later!


Richard Dobson



Tony Grimwood wrote:

>
>
> There are csound users who are also competent software developers. ADI
> could have the driver code ported to other OSs for free if they wished it
> to happen. Maybe they're reluctant to offend a potential buyer of the
> technology...
>
>
>
> BTW - does Scotty Vercoe subscribe to this list?
>
>