22 Sep
2002
22 Sep
'02
4:24 p.m.
On Sun, 2002-09-22 at 12:36, M. Edward Borasky wrote:
I guess my idea of an inexpensive "programmable
DSP box" is a low-end
desktop PC running Linux and "sfront" with a decent inexpensive sound card.
What's the point of specialized DSP hardware and software when you have a
Pentium or Athlon capable of doing gigaflops and an OS capable of being
customized to keep it out of the DSP code's way?
Sure, and that's a valid point. What's cool about the Chameleon is that
I can put it in a rack and take it to a gig with the rest of my rack
gear (and it won't run so hot that it'll cook my synths or start a
fire). A rackmount computer might be an option if it will work in a
light-duty effects rack, even though general-purpose chips/etc. are a
lot more expensive than DSP chips. So maybe better questions are:
1. where can I get a cheap 1U rackmount enclosure with a LED slot?
2. what is a good rackmount motherboard with one PCI slot
(for an audiophile or hoontech card)?
3. what low-power (but fairly high-performance) chips run Linux
well? ARM is inadequate because it has no FPU, and the PPC
boards were pretty expensive last I checked. I suppose that a
deceleron or duron would be adequate because I won't need a
lot of cache (?), but I'd rather have the cache.
Thanks all,
wb
--
Will Benton <willb(a)cs.wisc.edu>