17 replies to this topic

[losethos]

I've written an operating system and am interesting in supporting modern sound cards instead of just the PC speaker. I've looked for documentation, but no luck. Intel has some documentation on "AC'97" and "HD" in it's chipset datasheet. I can't afford the time to do support for many diverse cards and will not work without documentation.

Is "AC'97' or the "HD" protocol used much. What are the dominant cards? Will we see everybody move to "HD"? I have a creative sound card and I don't think it supports "AC'97".

This is very frustrating because all i need is a damn port to send data to a D-to-A convertor (buffered) to have the sound I want. I have spare CPU cores to create waveforms. I hate sound card companies and hope they dissappear as they get sucked-up by Intel, the only company friendly enough to document their hardware.

i could literally make a sound card faster than get somebody else' working. i did a simple ISA sound card, years ago and could make a buffered D-TO-A convertor card with a PCI FPGA kit type card. I hate sound card companies with a passion. I know DSP, by the way.

Check out LoseThos, if you're curious about where I am now. http://www.losethos.com

It is 64-bit and supports multicore.

[alphadog]

losethos said:

I've written an operating system and am interesting in supporting modern sound cards instead of just the PC speaker.

Have you considered looking at source at existing, low-level sound libraries like ALSA, and see how they do it?

[losethos]

I've gotten this far without getting encumbered by GPL. They don't like people making money.

Also, I don't want a solution that requires multiple drivers for multiple cards. I want to know if Intel "AC'97" or "HD" is widely used or if it is up-and-coming and destined to be the one standard. It's documented by Intel, more or less -- no GPL issues -- so I'm hoping it will become the standard.

The main question is how widely supported by sound cards are the "AC'97" and "HD" interfaces?

[alphadog]

losethos said:

I've gotten this far without getting encumbered by GPL. They don't like people making money.

Sorry, but that is so extremely, boneheaded wrong, that I had to reply.

But, if you want to debate this, we should start another thread, cuz it's gonna be a doozy of a tangent if we get into here...

losethos said:

Also, I don't want a solution that requires multiple drivers for multiple cards...The main question is how widely supported by sound cards are the "AC'97" and "HD" interfaces?

I guess what you want is the equivalent of Windows' UAA for your OS? I don't know of any other solution to your lack of desire to support multiple sound cards. Microsoft has lots of info on how they architected this. Maybe you'll dig up something useful?

BTW, UAA is a dangerous thing. Many vendors don't like to be forced into a "lowest common denominator" dance...

Lastly, AC97 is pretty widely available. HD Audio is much less so.

[losethos]

Thanks for the info. Umm... I've looked at the Intel AC'97 datasheet and it's seems to mostly be about mixer levels for various streams. Do you know if it is, in fact, a standard for actually creating sound streams? Some of the Intel device support -- USB for example or SATA devices -- tells how to send data to a device, but doesn't specify the format of the data. Is AC'97 all I need for fairly universal sound support or do I need, in addition, to know what each different card expects from the CPU? I can look and find-out, but if you know, offhand, it would be great.

[alphadog]

losethos said:

Do you know if it is, in fact, a standard for actually creating sound streams?

Well, there's got to be something out there, right? Linux has AC97 support built into the kernel, I think, so why not look at how they do it as a starting point? There may be some hints in there that can get you going.

http://www.gelato.un...97_codec.h#L480

[losethos]

If I so much as look at GPL code, the GPL Nazi's will claim ownership of my entire operating system. Have you heard them ranting on websites? I'd like to make money from my work and one unique thing mine offers is no GPL restrictions. A company could make a operating system independent game CD from losethos without the need to mention anybody. I have promised that the operating system itself will be free, but I don't want to yield possibilities of making money in any number of other ways. I find the open source crowd to be more vile and lawyerlike than any corporation.

[Reedbeta]

losethos said:

If I so much as look at GPL code, the GPL Nazi's will claim ownership of my entire operating system.

If they do that, they'll have no basis for such a claim, so why worry about it? You'd only be in trouble if your code looked so similar to the GPL code as to be indisputably derivative of it. If you look at the GPL code and see how it works, then use the knowledge gained to write your own code, you're clear. Besides, no one needs to know you looked at the GPL code.

[losethos]

God knows. God's my boss.

God says...
defers subjoinedst ordinarily licenses unhealthiness obtaining
excellencies Truly nets justly feel Unity Canst remembered
boy tremble oratory benefit medicining readily supreme
grievously blamest health's immoderate identify Descend
fretted

[Reedbeta]

Uh, what?

[losethos]

I consult God regularly. One design decision He made was no child windows -- policy of one window per task. Another decision He made was 640x480 resolution. I posted a promise of sticking to this resolution. Then, God said He didn't mean permanantly, but I had already promised and God expects you to keep your word. Those were the main influences by God on my operating system. He's made little things, too.

The random words are basically a ouiji board with no cheating. Sample a mega or gigahertz clock when you press a key and take the low bits as a random number for picking words or pages or notes. What you just saw generated that way.

God's court is the supremest court. It's funny -- I hear these punks saying piracy is not theft. I'd like to see them tell God. I thought so!

[Reedbeta]

I can't decide if you're a nutter, a troll, or both.

[losethos]

Wouldn't you believe in God if He talked to you? What's nutty about that?

By the way, bearing false witness is against a commandment.

God says...
succour cherish thief chastenedst skins wait hiddest hears
modestly knowledge curing remaineth Rejoiceth linger ceasest
fanned bare

[alphadog]

losethos said:

If I so much as look at GPL code, the GPL Nazi's will claim ownership of my entire operating system. Have you heard them ranting on websites? I'd like to make money from my work and one unique thing mine offers is no GPL restrictions. A company could make a operating system independent game CD from losethos without the need to mention anybody. I have promised that the operating system itself will be free, but I don't want to yield possibilities of making money in any number of other ways. I find the open source crowd to be more vile and lawyerlike than any corporation.

Uhm, don't know if I should bother at this point, because maybe your ears are only tuned to the "God Wavelength'", but again, you're understanding of the GPL, and its rules and operation is woefully inadequate and ignorant. I'm not sure if it's God whispering in your ear, or Steve Ballmer. Apart from the gibberish out of a thesaurus, it sounds like Mr. Ballmer.

At any rate, look at BSD then. The BSD license is much more permissive.

[losethos]

BSD is better, that's for sure. I downloaded opensound with a BSD license, but couldn't uncompress it. I even bought a new copy of winzip -- no luck.

In terms of reviewing my assets, not having other peoples code is a hugely unique aspect of my operating system that I shouldn't throw away casually at this stage. If I say BSD license, people will assume the thing is 100% somebody else's code and I lose credit for all the work I've done and they move on their way and use OpenBSD or whatever.

This decision has nuances and must be done with wisdom on the overall affects.

God earlier said the guy was trying to sucker me into letting the tenticles of GPL into my project. It is GPL that condemns all competition to Microsoft. Everyone is lazy and looks at Linux and has a product they cannot sell. GPL is a plot from Microsoft to curse all competetion.

God says...
perceiveth ludicrous related flattering Certainly Amid twelve
repute whereat bustle discovering amazement fleeting Abraham's
solve alternates meets sentences palaces Betwixt breathe
diminution averred doubts oh overwhelmed detached cleanse
silversmiths' beauties forgivest replenished eagerness
know got deceive variableness stung unpermitted interpret
real speaketh danger increased Egyptian demander result
distinctly unchain mightest Seneca Victor unlikeliness
highest indicate objected audience monster ships fever
tilde gazing worshipper

[Reedbeta]

losethos said:

I downloaded opensound with a BSD license, but couldn't uncompress it. I even bought a new copy of winzip -- no luck.

What format was it in? Try 7zip; it can decompress almost anything that's not proprietary.

And, before you go off, using a GPL application to decompress some source to read does not obligate you to make your own code GPL.

[losethos]

I went to opensound to get it again, but I saw that it's not free for commercial use. I want free as in BSD -- no strings except you can't sue them.

http://www.opensound.com/download.cgi

Eliminates the agonizing question of changing from public domain to BSD for my whole thing.

[losethos]

I'm just going to pray evil sound card companies disappear in the age of 8 core machines. All you need is a buffered D-to-A convertor or two. There's no reason for sound cards to exist. They are evil for not releasing documentation. Maybe, AC97 and HD will be standard. F--ing hate companies who don't document. Microsoft is not the enemy -- hardware companies who don't document are the enemy.