From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Sun Sep  6 16:55:47 1998
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To: alsa-devel@jcu.cz
Subject: Re: Linux Sound Drivers 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 06 Sep 1998 15:17:18 +0200."
             <19980906151718.D656@wingding.demon.nl> 
Date: Sun, 06 Sep 1998 10:54:31 -0300
From: Paul Barton-Davis <pbd@op.net>
Reply-To: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Sender: alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz
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>But the wavetable chip is very much like the GUS's one, and the GUS
>had also the possibility to use the /dev/dsp, so it is possible in
>theory. I also remember a DOS program which could play a sample an a
>Maui. It programmed an instrument to play indefinitely, and then
>changed the sample on the fly or something like that.

Heh heh. "The difference between theory and practice is greater in
practice than in theory".

>> [ old maui ] support wasn't particularly fantastic if you were interested in
>> programming the synth or using some its more interesting features.
>
>...but the stubs were in :)

true, but nothing to support virtual MIDI mode, which is the most
useful feature so far. Being able to talk to the WaveFront synth via
MIDI quite separately from my external MIDI bus is very
pleasant. Also, you had to run a DOS program to configure the card. Ick.

>Then again, the Maui can be programmed in two ways: by using direct
>port access, or by encapsulating the commands in MIDI messages.

As can all the WaveFront soundcards - its an excellent design that
should be widely emulated. However, sample downloading takes forever
by doing this, and once you've built the kernel mechanism for sample
downloading, i figure you may as well allow direct access to
port-based commands from user-level. But I will grant you that most
everything else could be done from user level without anything but
MIDI, even if the real-time response might not have been quite so
great (probably still adequate, however).

>> Far from it. I know of at least 2 others who are using my driver, and
>> there are undoubtedly more out there.
>
>Are you sure they've got a _Maui_?

Not absolutely positive, but they seem to think so. It could only be a
Tropez otherwise, since their cards have no FX processor. 

--p

