20 Mar
2003
20 Mar
'03
11:09 a.m.
> We're effectively talking about a driver for
the Motorola DSP
> onboard (I can't remember what the no is.)
No, that stuff is "secret". The microcode is
available only as raw
binaries, and the driver's job is to talk to the microcode; not the
hardware directly. So, we're talking about Linux kernel space only;
no DSP code.
When you say "available as binaries" I take it that it's still running on
board the card's ROM? (ie microcode implemented within the card, not the
host.)
20 Mar
20 Mar
11:24 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] MP3 of Paul Davis's Keynote?
Might anyone know when the MP3 of Paul Davis's keynote address at the recent
LAD conference in Karlsruhe will be up on the Web site?
http://www.ima.zkm.de/lad03/
Len Moskowitz
Core Sound
11:29 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
-----Original Message-----
From: linux-audio-dev-admin(a)music.columbia.edu
[mailto:linux-audio-dev-admin@music.columbia.edu]On Behalf Of Ranjit
Singh
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 7:57 AM
To: linux-audio-dev(a)music.columbia.edu
Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
>> We're effectively talking about a driver
for the Motorola DSP
>> onboard (I can't remember what the no is.)
>No, that stuff is "secret". The microcode
is available only as raw
>binaries, and the driver's job is to talk to the microcode; not the
>hardware directly. So, we're talking about Linux kernel space only;
>no DSP code.
When you say "available as binaries" I take
it that it's still running on
board the card's ROM? (ie microcode implemented within the card, not the
host.)
My only interest is in th interface components useful in making a device
driver.
4:01 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
On Thursday 20 March 2003 16.57, Ranjit Singh wrote:
When you say "available as binaries" I take it that it's still
running on board the card's ROM? (ie microcode implemented within
the card, not the host.)
No, there are no ROMs. The DSP code (and ASIC code, for some models)
has to be uploaded by the driver. No big deal, though. The only issue
is that we have to drag all that binary code around with the drivers.
Anyway, I believe this goes for a bunch of other cards as well, so no
news here, really.
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate
.- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -'
--- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---
We're effectively talking about a driver for the
Motorola DSP
onboard (I can't remember what the no is.)
No, that stuff is "secret". The microcode is available only as raw
binaries, and the driver's job is to talk to the microcode; not
the hardware directly. So, we're talking about Linux kernel space
only; no DSP code. 
5:13 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
Anyway, I believe this goes for a bunch of other cards
as well, so no
news here, really.
there are plans to try to generalize the "firmware" loading for ALSA
drivers to load stuff from a regular file. the wavefront driver does
this. not many people know that a linux driver can call
open/close/read/write. its pretty cool.
--p
21 Mar
21 Mar
4:27 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
On Thursday 20 March 2003 23.08, Paul Davis wrote:
Sounds like we should have a look at that driver. There's a *lot* of
firmware data for all the EchoGals, and compiling multiple drivers
just to avoid dragging it all in seems silly.
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate
.- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -'
--- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---
Anyway, I
believe this goes for a bunch of other cards as well, so
no news here, really.
there are plans to try to generalize the "firmware" loading for
ALSA drivers to load stuff from a regular file. the wavefront
driver does this. not many people know that a linux driver can call
open/close/read/write. its pretty cool. 
3:42 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, David Olofson wrote:
On Thursday 20 March 2003 23.08, Paul Davis wrote:
Sounds like we should have a look at that
driver. There's a *lot* of
firmware data for all the EchoGals, and compiling multiple drivers
just to avoid dragging it all in seems silly.
it is however quite dangerous for a driver to do so.
a better interface is a generic firmware loading API (or as generic as one
can be made, anyway) with a userspace firmware loader.
-Dan
--
[-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-]
Anyway, I
believe this goes for a bunch of other cards as well, so
no news here, really.
there are plans to try to generalize the
"firmware" loading for
ALSA drivers to load stuff from a regular file. the wavefront
driver does this. not many people know that a linux driver can call
open/close/read/write. its pretty cool.
3:52 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
it is however quite dangerous for a driver to do so.
why?
a better interface is a generic firmware loading API
(or as generic as one
can be made, anyway) with a userspace firmware loader.
agreed. its a rather tricky design however, because on a lot of
hardware, you have to defer most of the driver initialization until
the firmware load is complete. the h/w won't even talk to you "fully"
until you've done this. this means you have a loaded device driver
that is actually incapable of doing anything until a separate
user-space application is invoked.
24 Mar
24 Mar
8:45 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
On Friday 21 March 2003 21.47, Paul Davis wrote:
[...]
Just to make things more fun, it seems that Echo put some programmable
logic in the external part of Layla. (Only the DSP is on the PCI
card.) Problem is that the external box has it's own power supply,
and a switch on the front panel, and may well be powered off when you
start up the computer. If that happens, the driver must delay the
initialization until the external box is powered on.
BTW, it took years for Echo to actually get this to work under Win32,
and looking at the Layla driver, it seems like the whole
initialization business with that model is a bit flaky. (Well, using
the first few versions of the driver gave me the exact same
impression.)
Did seem to work pretty well on Win32 last time I tried, though, so I
believe the current driver code deals with it.
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate
.- The Return of Audiality! --------------------------------.
| Free/Open Source Audio Engine for use in Games or Studio. |
| RT and off-line synth. Scripting. Sample accurate timing. |
`-----------------------------------> http://audiality.org -'
--- http://olofson.net --- http://www.reologica.se ---
a better
interface is a generic firmware loading API (or as
generic as one can be made, anyway) with a userspace firmware
loader.
agreed. its a rather tricky design however, because on a lot of
hardware, you have to defer most of the driver initialization until
the firmware load is complete. the h/w won't even talk to you
"fully" until you've done this. this means you have a loaded device
driver that is actually incapable of doing anything until a
separate user-space application is invoked. 
12:36 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
On Monday 24 March 2003 08:35, David Olofson wrote:
On Friday 21 March 2003 21.47, Paul Davis wrote:
> agreed. its a rather tricky design however, because on a lot of
> hardware, you have to defer most of the driver initialization until
> the firmware load is complete. the h/w won't even talk to you
Just to make things more fun, it seems that Echo put
some programmable
logic in the external part of Layla. (Only the DSP is on the PCI
card.) Problem is that the external box has it's own power supply,
and a switch on the front panel, and may well be powered off when you
start up the computer. If that happens, the driver must delay the
initialization until the external box is powered on.
It's an FPGA, IIRC. All the codecs and such are in the external box, and the
FPGA does all the signal routing and may do some DSP work (for output monitor
matrix and volume). The Layla's output monitoring capabilities are quite
powerful, with any input available for monitoring to any output, with
multiple inputs to multiple outputs allowed. So the FPGA must do some mixing
for all 12 possible outputs, where each output may have anywhere from zero to
eight inputs assigned. Since the S/PDIF I/O is included in the matrix
possibilities (both as an input and an output), but has no level control on
either inputs or outputs, I would hazard a guess that the input and output
level controls are implemented as digitally controlled volume control chips,
and the FPGA probably only does minimal mixing in the S/PDIF domain.
I can open my Layla to make sure; just not today.
The few times I've tried the 'switch the external box off with PC up' routine
have all caused problems at some point.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11
21 Mar
21 Mar
7:02 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Echo Darla/Gina/Layla/... on Linux
At Thu, 20 Mar 2003 17:08:23 -0500,
Paul Davis wrote:
do you mean that the driver itself opens a file?
yes, it's quite practical that the driver loads the firmware by
itself. but it won't work if the driver is built in the kernel,
because the filesystem might not be mounted yet.
so, a loader binary would be more feasible.
(and, we can call such a binary conditionally according to the
kernel config like request_module() calls modprobe.)
Takashi
Anyway, I believe this goes for a bunch of other
cards as well, so no
news here, really.
there are plans to try to generalize the "firmware" loading for ALSA
drivers to load stuff from a regular file. the wavefront driver does
this. not many people know that a linux driver can call
open/close/read/write. its pretty cool.
7710
days inactive
7714
days old
linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
10 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
Brad Arant -
Dan Hollis -
David Olofson -
Lamar Owen -
Len Moskowitz -
Paul Davis -
Ranjit Singh -
Takashi Iwai