🚀 go-pugleaf

Original to: dmb@xbar.ai.mit.edu
In a message of <04 Dec 1992 15:46:2>, dmb@xbar.ai.mit.edu (3:713/602)
writes:

 >> Sooory, software has already been written supporting the Falcon's DSP
chip,
 >>  some of which is packaged with the machine!
 d> 
 d> 1. You've never seen or used this vaporware.

Have & have - and it isn't.

 d> 2. I'm sure that when you buy a DSP board for a PC or Mac that you don't
 d> just get a chunk of hardware and a note that says "Have fun!"  They're
 d> obviously going to give you software to use it.

You wish.  I've seen & played with enough of the available hardware for the
PC and Mac - the usual support is either 'buy package X - they have drivers
for our DSP board' where package X is some monster application which costs
$K (try buying lab software - your great "favorite" Microsoft don't even
consider it a market worth pursuing) and doesn't do anything useful at all. 
If you are _really_ lucky they _might_ give you some precompiled libraries
for talking to the board, if you happen to use their favorite compiler, and
can live with doing all the hard work yourself.

If you are willing to part with even more bucks (and here we are talking
about paying more for the board than a Falcon costs, and then 2 or 3 times
more again) they may tell you how to talk to it...   of the half-dozen or so
manufacturers I canvassed, two were happy with the thought of selling me
data -and support, at typical support rates - trunk call to the US, US
daylight hours only.

NOBODY is going to fork out AUD$1500.00 for a DSP board for a PC...
especially when there isn't any standard implementation, not even one as
cheesy as the SoundFarter.

 d> Dave Baggett

Dave : the DSP is a Good Thing.  It may not be the great selling point that
the hardline loyalists make it out to be, but it is a cheap way of greatly
increasing the system's suitability for niche markets, which still has to be
one of Atari's prime market thrusts.

\`miff`                                                       /|\

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