[linux-audio-dev] Re: GPL Audio Hardware

[Richard Smith]

On 4/4/06, carmen <ix at replic.net> wrote:

> > how expensive is a firewire port ?
> > firewire stuff is THE niche to fill.
> > most newer firewire devices are not supported if if i understand
> > correctly.

I'll ask.  That's a fairly large difference to the current design
though.  But if there was enough interest perhaps.
For it to fit into the current model someone would have to do the VHDL
code for a firewire interface rather than PCI.  I don't think Tim is
opposed to a totally different design but there would be less reuse
from what they already have.

>yeah this would be where my interest is as well. somehow i dont
believe the 2 million >figure (maybe designing a video card from
scratch, and printing it up) . i mean can't you >just go to whatever
factory in Shenzen is churning out crap for Behringer and have them
>slap a GNU label on it and ship it with schematics and open source
drivers?

I think you are missing the point.  The current design for OGD1 is a
large FPGA with lots of onboard fast RAM and high speed IO ability. 
Tim is wondering if such a card (perhaps with some modification for
audio) would be useful to the audio community.

The FPGA lets the card be any manner of different things if you write
the VHDL code to make it happen.  As it stands now OGP has a lot of
code for doing graphics work.

So if there are things that could benefit from a type of audio
"hardware acceleration" that is completely user programmable  then
this card would be great for it.  If not well then it may not be of
much use.

The $2 Million is the cost of getting a video card with a fast ASIC of
the final VHDL rather than a big expensive FPGA.  Custom silicon ain't
cheap.

--
Richard A. Smith