This is Sound in view mode; [Up]
Date: Sun 22-Mar-1990 03:29:57 From: Unknown Subject: Re: Sound In article <7344@hydra.gatech.EDU> iansmith@warhol.gatech.edu (Ian Smith) writes: >Sound on workstations is a long way from being standardized. Until there is >such a standard we will all have to just use sound programs specific to our >architechture. > Sun may be attempting to do this with is /dev/audio implementation on >the Sparcstation, but its a long way from doing the whole job. Take your SPARCstation audio file and incant sndconvert -o nextified.snd -f 1 -s 8012.8210513 -c 1 -r sun-sound All this does it put a descriptive header on it. It does not change the data itself. Surprise! They're binary compatible! (If you don't believe me, take a NeXT voice file and copy it to /dev/audio on a SPARCstation 1. It will be clearly intelligible, except for a little garbage at the beginning.) OK, we're only talking about telephone-quality audio, but already you've got the makings of a de facto standard. Now--who's going to volunteer to produce a mail program for the SPARCstation 1 that is interoperable with NeXT Mail? (It doesn't have to look the same onscreen (it can look just like mailtool for all I care), it just has to be network-compatible). The reality is that we have both NeXTs and SPARCstations, we will continue to have both, and we want them to work together to the maximum extent possible. -=EPS=- >From: rock@lighthouse.com
Date: Sun 22-Mar-1990 16:58:47 From: Unknown Subject: Re: Sound In article <412@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: >Now--who's going to volunteer to produce a mail program for the >SPARCstation 1 that is interoperable with NeXT Mail? (It doesn't >have to look the same onscreen (it can look just like mailtool >for all I care), it just has to be network-compatible). > -=EPS=- We're already working on it. (Just thought I'd let this out in case anyone else is working or contemplating working on the same thing.) I'll post more details as the time draws near... Cheers, Keith
Date: Sun 22-Mar-1990 15:06:00 From: Unknown Subject: Re: Sound In article <412@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: > >Take your SPARCstation audio file and incant > >sndconvert -o nextified.snd -f 1 -s 8012.8210513 -c 1 -r sun-sound > > [...] OK, we're only >talking about telephone-quality audio For some reason, this point always seems lost when comparing NeXT with computers X, Y or Z. I think Sun really missed the boat when they decided to go with an 8-bit/8k audio device. No other machine that I know of can come close to providing the integrated *high quality* audio software and hardware that NeXT for anywhere near the price. Yes I know there are reasonably-priced DSP and audio cards for Macs, Amigas, PCs, etc., but can I run cmix and csound on them with minimal pain? Is there any MusicKit or SoundKit equivalent? Inexpensive removable media for the large storage required for serious sound work? Blah blah blah... We get soooo critical about how displays look, etc. but are willing to live with sound quality that is poor at best. I'm hoping that this will change when "multi-media" systems (or whatever the current buzzword is) become more commonplace. May the best sound win! Of course, I'm probably just a little prejudiced in this respect... Brad Garton Music Department -- Columbia University brad@woof.columbia.edu >From: jwag@moose.sgi.com (Chris Wagner)
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Marcel Waldvogel and Netfuture.ch.