| On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, khalid wrote:
[snip]
> Nicola Bernardini wrote:
> >
> >
> > Why? If the specs where public, it would probably be so quick to
> > build the *right* development tools for that card; oh well, who cares,
> > there are so many other cards...
> >
> > Nicola
>
> I haven't noticed any sign that ADI is actually aiming at developing a
> PCI card for the market. I guess they make these cards for developement
> of apps that would then run in embedded systems. If you consider how
> many people (buyers) actually care bout things like "LPC" or grain-
> synthesis you might understand them. We software synthesis lovers are
> still a minority that won't grow so quickly, I believe.
I do perfectly understand that ADI is not interested. As a matter of
fact, in another very clear and illuminating mail by Scotty Vercoe
(to whom I must express my gratitude to have taken the time to explain
so plainly and kindly what is going on), Scotty says:
On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Vercoe, Scotty wrote:
[snip]
> exciting development environment. Keep in mind that Analog Devices is a
> chip company, so doing software alone is a stretch! Our Software and
> Systems Technology Division led by Mike Haidar, is dedicated to
> enhancing the value of ADI's chips with software for dedicated
> applications. Writing drivers for multiple platforms does not make
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> sense because we are not trying to make money off the development kit.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> The goal of any kit from ADI is to provide customers and developers with
> a system they can use to prototype products that use our chips.
I find this perfectly sensible and reasonable. And I would think that
ADI has all to be gained to keep the information concerning their
software activities and writing public, so that all of us could contribute in
providing more platform implementations etc. etc.
> Meanwhile, you could have a look at the MAAS/Highend-sound-driver pro-
> ject. This board has a Motorola 56301 DSP on it. It is said to reach
> 80.000 MFlops (the SHARC DSP is about 120.000). There are development
> tools for the 56k family running under Linux (though I haven't used
I am aware of the MAAS project and especially of the Highend-sound-driver
and I am in contact with Guenter Geiger; I find them very courageous and
I wonder if and when and for how much a card like the MAAS could be had...
The point is: we need high diffusion cards to be able to buy them at
a reasonable cost, and at the same time we need the info to be able
to add linux support. Since the commercial guys do not release the info
to avoid cloning of the cards, and linux/csound/whatever is a small, very
small niche, we are stuck. This is why generic development boards like
ADI's could come in handy. I must say that the last benchmark war on
hardwares and OSes on this mailing list was pretty boring (I hope that
is over now): everybody should use whatever works best for her/him and
her/his pocket - but in order to do that, we must obtain support to be
able to build drivers to their full extent etc.
> them). B.t.w. - great work with the parser!!
Thank you. I *really* appreciate any comments on that...
nicb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicola Bernardini
E-mail: nicb@axnet.it
Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe
the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described
with pictures.
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