Re: [alsa-devel] AMIGA will use Linux, but Linux has

Steve Underwood (steveu@netpage.com.hk)
Sun, 11 Jul 1999 11:43:24 +0000


Hi,

Dirk Moerenhout wrote:

> So I think I'd like to know what hardware they'll use before I'd start
> makeing a fuss. If I gave you a DSP that did mp3-decoding (costs near to
> nothing BTW) your CPU would need to do nearly nothing to play an mp3 (a
> 286 would be enough). For many other things this goes too. It shouldn't be
> too hard to put in some DSP's that do some neat tricks and make everything
> a lot easier to handle. AFAIK short latency is interesting because you
> want to make small blocks of data so you have instant changes in your
> output. But if you'd move a big part of that functionality to a DSP you'd
> have a lot less worries.

There is a perverse rule in the PC industry to the effect that "the main CPU can do
it". Why its considered such a good idea to make a $200-300 CPU do the job of a
$10-15 DSP (which is just about all a current Pentium II can do) is beyond me, but
that's how it is. In the early 90's TI, Motorola, Analog Devices and Lucent were all
battling for supremacy in the forthcoming market for motherboard DSPs. They all
implemented a range of Windows 3.1 packages for games audio, MIDI synthesis, modem,
duplex speakerphone, answering machine, and so on. In the end they all lost, as the
PC vendors backed away from doing anything. The only serious crunch that's ever been
added to the standard PC has been video acceleration, and until recently even that
seldom got onto the motherboard.

Steve

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/