From ultra-devel-owner@ultra.jcu.cz  Tue Feb 17 01:03:09 1998
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Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:00:52 -0400
From: Alan Robinson <ar@vt.edu>
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Subject: Re: Sign on (and test really :)
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Andy Lo A Foe wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, Alan Robinson wrote:
> 
> > Its interesting, but I find it a little to simplistic.  Perhaps it could be
> > useful as low level set of interfaces directly to hardware.  But, as far as
> > I can tell, it ignores sound cards like the GUS, and all their special
> > abilitys.
> 
> The SDL API is for a (straight forward) DAC type device yes. I assume
> that by special abilities you mean wavetable support? That should be
> covered by the MIDI (sequencer or instrument) API part.

Yes, altho I think that offering wavetable support only through MIDI would be
a little limiting.  Of course, MIDI should be supported too.  Yet again, we
need some sort of low level driver for the hardware, and then a high level
interface for MIDI, and patch playing.  

I like the 3 layer idea of penguin play:
o 1st level offers only the features that the hardware might offer.
o 2nd level makes the first level more flexable (eg, mixing several streams
out to a DAC).
o 3rd level offers a simple interface to it all (playmidi, playwav, and so on).
 

Perhaps such a design is already a given, and that is why we don't discuss it?
 Or maybe some other layout has been developed that I don't know about?

-- Alan.

