21 Mar
2013
21 Mar
'13
8:52 p.m.
On Thu, March 21, 2013 9:59 am, Neil wrote:
That's why my talk about audio production at Ohio
Linux Fest focused on
the
stuff that *didn't* go smoothly when I switched from Mac to Linux.
It is interesting how people's experience shapes what they expect. Apple
was always out of my price range and still is. I started out with an atari
mega and various bought/shareware/freeware/DIYware. It had a nice
sequencer and as I had only 4 tracks, putting MTC on one track gave me
drums and keys up to 16 tracks as well as three analog tracks. Got
interested in BBSs and set one up. only problem I couldn't do music at the
same time. Got an old (even then) 286 MB and PS (no case) and put DRdos on
it and ran maximus. A friend had windows (3.1 back then) ran two lines,
when the second line connected, the first slowed down to 1/4... we're
talking 3kbaud here, and had to use a mechanical timer to restart the
system at least once a day. So when I went two lines I used OS/2 (IBM was
giving 2.1 away in hopes of selling 3.0) I could go on holidays for two
weeks and come back to a running system. One line had no effect on the
other. Then the Internet started to show up. I wanted to do networking,
but IBM wanted big money for network drivers for OS/2. Windows didn't
really have it either. and this was still pre win95. I ended up with Linux
about 93 or 94, Slackware pre 1.0. I ported my BBS over (hand coded the
lot) and have been with it ever since. Apple is still over priced and
windows has never really (for me) caught up, at least in the things that
matter. I have experienced windows in various ways. 95 on my wifes
machine, till it got infected, NT at work, saw lots of crashes, we used
Linux to load/back it up though, win ME was broken and never fixed, win 7
is slow, even Ubuntu vanilla is faster.
So Apple has priced themselves out of my interest. I can't afford the
hardware, and most SW has to be bought. Windows still doesn't just work,
you seem to need to buy a boat load of utilities to keep it infection free
and keep it from slowing down, it really isn't a multi user system, but a
multiuser hack on top of a single user kernel (last I checked). MS does
not fix problems in a timely manner. The license seems to indicate that if
I make music on their system they own a part of it. They seem to have a
right to all the files on my disk too... not acceptable. (maybe the lic
has changed?) Anyone with that kind of license would have a right to add
access for themselves to my computer.
So for me migrating to Linux has never been an issue, it is where I
started, and every time I look at something else... switching looks really
painful, better to make what I have work.
--
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net
21 Mar
21 Mar
9:48 p.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
When I migrated to Linux, I was a full free software supporter. However,
since
then my views have changed considerably. I do not fully agree with Stallman
and I do not consider proprietary software "evil" in any sense. However, I
do
genuinely like Linux, I like to use it daily and I enjoy being part of a
community of
people who decided to build an operating system for themselves.
I do believe that free as in speech software is a very very good concept. I
think all information should be free as in speech - including music, books
and movies. But I don't think you can or should force what you think is good
on other people unless it is in self-defense of some sort.
So I do use proprietary software on Linux. Namely, my licensed copy of Gold
Wave - a vintage sound editor. Works great under WINE. I do use some VSTs
through Festige, quite rarely though. In fact, I can remember only 1 tune I
released where a VST was used to generate wind.
L.V.
9:55 p.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net> wrote:
There was no Apple hardware involved. It was a standard PC running Mac OS.
Neil
--
DJ Dual Core's Blog
http://oldmixtapes.blogspot.com/
Order without government; Peace without violence.
That's why
my talk about audio production at Ohio Linux Fest focused on
the
stuff that *didn't* go smoothly when I switched from Mac to Linux.
It is interesting how people's experience shapes what they expect. Apple
was always out of my price range and still is. 
11:59 p.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Thursday 21 March 2013 15:52:14 Len Ovens wrote:
On Thu, March 21, 2013 9:59 am, Neil wrote:
I started in micros on a borrowed TRS-80 Model I.
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80i.html
With the cassette drive even. Writing games in basic and saving them to tape.
Ouch.
That's why my talk about audio production at
Ohio Linux Fest focused on
the
stuff that *didn't* go smoothly when I switched from Mac to Linux.
It is interesting how people's experience shapes what they expect. Apple
was always out of my price range and still is. I started out with an atari
mega and various bought/shareware/freeware/DIYware. It had a nice
sequencer and as I had only 4 tracks, putting MTC on one track gave me
drums and keys up to 16 tracks as well as three analog tracks. Got
interested in BBSs
BBSes. Started on an epson QX-10.
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/qx-10/
With a Hayes smartmodem 1200
http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/Hayes%20SMARTMODEM%201200
that cost me $1,200.00 for the modem and an extra $80.00 for the serial cable.
The BBS software was written in basic and I wrote extensive additions for it.
and set one up. only problem I couldn't do music
at the
same time. Got an old (even then) 286 MB and PS (no case) and put DRdos on
it and ran maximus.
When I got a pc compatible, I ran various bbs systems including fidonet stuff.
I wanted to go multiline and bought The Majot BBS by Galicticom
http://www.themajorbbs.com/bbs/index.php
I spent good money on that baby.
I still have the boxes sitting on a shelf in my office.
Probably the best hardware it ever ran on was a 386. Some version of DOS I
imagine. I think I only ever ran two lines. The board used to be listed in
the back of Computer Shopper. I think it was called the zotzBoard.
At first I ran that board out of a closet in someone else's apartment. Later
it moved to a bell towed at a local monestary where the transmitter for the
radio station I currently work for is located. This was before I worked for
the station though.
A friend had windows (3.1 back then) ran two lines,
when the second line connected, the first slowed down to 1/4... we're
talking 3kbaud here, and had to use a mechanical timer to restart the
system at least once a day. So when I went two lines I used OS/2 (IBM was
giving 2.1 away in hopes of selling 3.0) I could go on holidays for two
weeks and come back to a running system. One line had no effect on the
other. Then the Internet started to show up. I wanted to do networking,
but IBM wanted big money for network drivers for OS/2. Windows didn't
really have it either. and this was still pre win95. I ended up with Linux
about 93 or 94, Slackware pre 1.0. I ported my BBS over (hand coded the
lot) and have been with it ever since. Apple is still over priced and
windows has never really (for me) caught up, at least in the things that
matter. I have experienced windows in various ways. 95 on my wifes
machine, till it got infected, NT at work, saw lots of crashes, we used
Linux to load/back it up though, win ME was broken and never fixed, win 7
is slow, even Ubuntu vanilla is faster.
I think my first linux may have been slack as well. I was floppy based. (6
floppies?) The a friend and I started ordering Walnut Creek CDs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walnut_Creek_CDROM
So Apple has priced themselves out of my interest. I can't afford the
hardware, and most SW has to be bought. Windows still doesn't just work,
you seem to need to buy a boat load of utilities to keep it infection free
and keep it from slowing down, it really isn't a multi user system, but a
multiuser hack on top of a single user kernel (last I checked). MS does
not fix problems in a timely manner. The license seems to indicate that if
I make music on their system they own a part of it. They seem to have a
right to all the files on my disk too... not acceptable. (maybe the lic
has changed?) Anyone with that kind of license would have a right to add
access for themselves to my computer.
So for me migrating to Linux has never been an issue, it is where I
started, and every time I look at something else... switching looks really
painful, better to make what I have work.
all the best,
drew
22 Mar
22 Mar
12:44 a.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Thu, 2013-03-21 at 18:59 -0400, drew Roberts wrote:
I started in micros on a borrowed TRS-80 Model I.
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80i.html
With the cassette drive even. Writing games in basic and saving them
to tape.
Ouch.
No reason for the "Ouch". The Z-80 is a very good processor. I didn't
use it, I was a 65xx coder, but anyway, BASIC isn't worse.
While I programmed most MIDI software in Assembler, I just wrote a MIDI
extension in Assembler for something called speech basic. This MIDI
extension written in Assembler, then were additional BASIC commands,
used to program a MIDI sound sampler in BASIC, without performance
issues and for sure with harder real-time, than usual for PC MIDI.
Perhaps I know somebody who cracked and reassembled Gerhard Lengelings
Supertrack ;), you can't imagine how much you can learn and how good
code can be, to provide something that still can compete with loop
sequencers for PCs, but is running on such simple CPUs.
Modern computers can do things old computers can't do, but the old
computers had some advantages, e.g. no layers to the hardware, so harder
real-time for MIDI.
1:11 a.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Thu, March 21, 2013 4:43 pm, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
Modern computers can do things old computers can't
do, but the old
computers had some advantages, e.g. no layers to the hardware, so harder
real-time for MIDI.
That was one of the things with the Atari Megas. The midi timing was very
good. Stable, no delay. The best audio IF I got for it was 12bit.
--
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net
1:22 a.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Thu, 2013-03-21 at 17:11 -0700, Len Ovens wrote:
On Thu, March 21, 2013 4:43 pm, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
I still own a Pseudo-Mega, it's a 520 ST enlarged with old PC RAM to
4MB, just the blitter is missing and it's quasi impossible to add a
blitter, but without blitter there only is a minor performance issue for
the display, MIDI always is hard real-time, but without blitter the
graphic for the timeline sometimes is slower. While for the C64 there
still were some issues, I never have seen a sequencer that can compete
with the latest version of Cubase on STs. Just avoid STEs and for the
520 ST it can't harm to replace the TOS ROMs with EPROMs of another
version, have forgotten what version, but I replaced the original TOS by
another version.
Modern computers can do things old computers
can't do, but the old
computers had some advantages, e.g. no layers to the hardware, so harder
real-time for MIDI.
That was one of the things with the Atari Megas. The midi timing was very
good. Stable, no delay. The best audio IF I got for it was 12bit.
2:46 a.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Thursday 21 March 2013 19:43:40 Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Thu, 2013-03-21 at 18:59 -0400, drew Roberts
wrote:
The ouch was for the saving and loading programs to a standard cassette player
and tape. I enjoyed the computer very much. Even more so when we got an
expansion interface and a daisy chain of floppy drives.
I started in micros on a borrowed TRS-80 Model
I.
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80i.html
With the cassette drive even. Writing games in basic and saving them
to tape.
Ouch.
No reason for the "Ouch". The Z-80 is a very good processor. I didn't
use it, I was a 65xx coder, but anyway, BASIC isn't worse.
While I programmed most MIDI software in Assembler, I just wrote a MIDI
extension in Assembler for something called speech basic. This MIDI
extension written in Assembler, then were additional BASIC commands,
used to program a MIDI sound sampler in BASIC, without performance
issues and for sure with harder real-time, than usual for PC MIDI.
Perhaps I know somebody who cracked and reassembled Gerhard Lengelings
Supertrack ;), you can't imagine how much you can learn and how good
code can be, to provide something that still can compete with loop
sequencers for PCs, but is running on such simple CPUs.
Modern computers can do things old computers can't do, but the old
computers had some advantages, e.g. no layers to the hardware, so harder
real-time for MIDI.
all the best,
drew
2:47 p.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 12:52:14PM -0700, Len Ovens wrote:
when the second line connected, the first slowed down
to 1/4... we're
talking 3kbaud here, and had to use a mechanical timer to restart the
Are you sure it wasn't just 300 Baud? Ahh!, the old BBS's ... almost
forgot about them.
--
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people
who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the
oppressing." --- Malcolm X
3:59 p.m.
New subject: Poll - Was: Hey everyone, a simple question.
On Fri, March 22, 2013 6:47 am, Chris Bannister wrote:
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 12:52:14PM -0700, Len Ovens
wrote:
Nah, we up to at least 2400 by then., but I think he had a 3300 as well.
--
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net
when the second line connected, the first slowed
down to 1/4... we're
talking 3kbaud here, and had to use a mechanical timer to restart the
Are you sure it wasn't just 300 Baud? Ahh!, the old BBS's ... almost
forgot about them.
4200
days inactive
4201
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
9 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Chris Bannister -
drew Roberts -
Len Ovens -
Louigi Verona -
Neil -
Ralf Mardorf