From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Wed Dec 30 14:08:55 1998
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Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 14:11:42 +0100
From: WHS <wouters@cistron.nl>
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To: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Subject: gsi & alsa
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[already sent to user, but may be relevant for devel, so here ]

Hi all,

As I've gotten many requests for ALSA support for gsi (see
http://www.cistron.nl/~wouters) and suggestions that it would be a good
idea to cooperate (to use gsi as a high level sound layer above alsa, in
particular all high level music code could be put in gsi) I'm writing
this to you.

First of all, a short description of gsi:
        - very simple to use api for pcm/synth/cd
        - works over networks too
        - currently, up to 64 app's can connect to the server at any one
time.
        - each app can have 256 slots (sounds) loaded at any one time.
        - each app can play sounds on up to 256 channels at any on time.
        - streams are supported

        - includes some useful apps (gsiplay, gsifile)

        - includes file loading/conversion library for midi/hmp/mus
(music),
aiff/voc/wav/au/raw (sounds).

What needs to be done:
        - the support for alsa pcm & mixer: should be easy (if you know
the
alsa api, which I don't, not yet anyway): see for example  mixer_oss.c &
pcm_oss.c for the api_* functions that must be implemented. Can one of
you help me with this?

        - lower level music support for non-midi playing and pcm-synth
emulation inside gsi (for this I want to use Keith Packard's midi player
which I saw was dicussed recently; Btw, Keith, would you be interested
in helping me with this ?). This may also be needed for the alsa
sequencer, if that's a lowlevel implementation.

        - support for alsa sequencer. See previous point.

        - implement cddb functions
        - saving/samplerate conversion of sounds in libgsif is very
incomplete.
        - shm buffers for fastest possible local streams.
        - some details wrt big/little endian cards on little/big endian
systems.

Any suggestions?

Regards,

Wouter


