Audio software porting made easier - RISC OS News, Software and Information

Audio software porting made easier

Published: 12th Sep 2004, 23:09:05GMT Source: drobe.co.uk
By Chris Williams

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Source code, lend me your ears

There's a lot of open source software out there, with quite a lot of it being aimed at Unix compatible operating systems - software that RISC OS could really do with.

However as RISC OS isn't Unix compatible by nature, a POSIX layer such as the GCCSDK's Unixlib is usually employed as a bridge between what the ported software expects and what RISC OS provides.

Music and code motif

Recent work on Unixlib by the GCCSDK team has included bug fixes and support for threading (specifically pthreads), and also this month, support for /dev/dsp. This enables OSS sound support and allows applications such as Madplay and Soundtracker (still in testing) to be ported to RISC OS and successfully output audio.

"The actual playing is done by the DigitalRenderer module, which has an interface for precisely this application, although there's some additional functionality in Unixlib to present the correct ioctls and file handling", explained drobe.co.uk's Peter Naulls, who added the /dev/dsp support to Unixlib. DigitalRenderer, which was developed by Andreas Dehmel, is also used to provide audio output for the SDL-powered game ports.

The /dev/dsp interface and other recent work on Unixlib is available from the latest source in CVS, if you wish to try it out prior to the next release of Unixlib.

Links
GCCSDK website

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Sawadee (+1.0) 13/9/04 11:29AM	It sounds lovely already! Once RISC OS has good sound and video / media, the software potential should be interesting?
Revin Kevin 13/9/04 7:51PM	The Unix Porting Project seems to get better and better in quick succesion. Well done to all those involved.
john (+1.0) 13/9/04 10:22PM	Nice one, good work to all who put in the effort!