[Alsa-devel] Marian Marc-8 MIDI sound card (aka SKE'D)
I'd like to get a driver working for this card, but "where to start" is always a sticking point. The info I have so far on the card is pretty detailed: 1) Its a PCI card (duh!!) 2) It uses 4 AK4524 24 bit codecs (total of 8 channels) 3) The PCI Target chip is a PLX PCI 9052 (pretty common) 4) It has a Xylinx "glue" chip that make it all work. Some "differences" 1) On the PCI interface it presents 4 regions: a) PLX registers b) I/O area where the samples are stored 32k 24 bit samples for each channel (seperate record/playback). It has the RAM on the card for buffering. NO DMA!! c) Control/Status for the FPGA (Xylinx) part d) Interface for loading the Xylinx part with its info (a supplied binary file, apparently propritery, but appears to be quite stable) 2) There are a pair of MIDI I/O ports that map into the region 'C' above. MIDI is not my chief concern. 3) The card doesn't use DMA. You get the audio samples into the memory on the card, and the driver takes it from there. 4) Lots of things are programmable. The sample frequency is one that can vary from 6kHz to 115kHz (if you can hear that!!) 5) You can have LOTS of these cards in one system. The card supports a master/slave logic that allows all of them to be sync'd together. I have a friend that has 6 of them working under Windoze. He really wants to "Go Linux!!", and I'd like to help!! Unknowns: Somehow this card generates interupts. I really haven't figured it out totally yet. If you want some info, I can forward some (or post them). Once things get started, I can do the debugging, but that "start" is my most difficult thing. Thanks. = -- Tom Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com --- This SF.net email is sponsored by:Crypto Challenge is now open! Get cracking and register here for some mind boggling fun and the chance of winning an Apple iPod: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0031en ___ Alsa-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
Re: [Alsa-devel] Marian Marc-8 MIDI sound card (aka SKE'D)
The best starting point is gathering info. Without good info, developement isn't easy. But you seem to be lucky, because I found the following on the website of Marian (www.marian.de): "Developers of drivers can obtain all information on the hardware architecture of our cards, which is necessary for developing drivers for such operating systems that are not supplied." I'd say getting this info is the first step. Next I'd recommend you to read the "Writing an alsa driver" document by Takashi Iwai. It can be found on the ASLA website. You could try and find an existing ALSA driver of a card that resembles your cards architecure. Might be usefull when reading the tutorial. After finishing the tutorial, you'll know what to do. btw: are you sure the card doesn't support DMA? The PLX 9052 supports DMA, and I can't imagine Marian not using it. Pieter Quoting Tom Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I'd like to get a driver working for this card, but "where to start" is > always a sticking point. --- This SF.net email is sponsored by:Crypto Challenge is now open! Get cracking and register here for some mind boggling fun and the chance of winning an Apple iPod: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0031en ___ Alsa-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
Re: [Alsa-devel] Marian Marc-8 MIDI sound card (aka SKE'D)
On Sun, Mar 23, 2003 at 04:05:30PM +0100, PIETER PALMERS wrote: > The best starting point is gathering info. Without good info, developement isn't > easy. But you seem to be lucky, because I found the following on the website of > Marian (www.marian.de): > "Developers of drivers can obtain all information on the hardware architecture > of our cards, which is necessary for developing drivers for such operating > systems that are not supplied." > > I'd say getting this info is the first step. > > Next I'd recommend you to read the "Writing an alsa driver" document by Takashi > Iwai. It can be found on the ASLA website. You could try and find an existing > ALSA driver of a card that resembles your cards architecure. Might be usefull > when reading the tutorial. After finishing the tutorial, you'll know what to do. > > btw: are you sure the card doesn't support DMA? The PLX 9052 supports DMA, and I > can't imagine Marian not using it. Doesn't use DMA?! Maybe this card runs in the same way like the rme cards (rme32, rme96, rme9652, hdsp): In this case you copy data from/to the card and set a startbit on the register. After that you get an interrupt. You can read that details in the RME Digi96 document, which you can found on ftp.alsa-project.org. Those cards were alsa using a Xilinx FPGA and I think that they are in some way related to your Marian/Sek'd. (BTW: RME Digi32 was also sold by Sek'd!). I don't know the details about the pdplus driver, but maybe it's also interesting for you, because it can be related in some manner. The first step of writing a driver should be the pci detection without any driver functionality (study that manual "Writing an alsa driver" therefore or look at other pci driver code). And if you can modprobe/rmmod an empty module you can start implementing some functionality to it. martin --- This SF.net email is sponsored by:Crypto Challenge is now open! Get cracking and register here for some mind boggling fun and the chance of winning an Apple iPod: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0031en ___ Alsa-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
Re: [Alsa-devel] Marian Marc-8 MIDI sound card (aka SKE'D)
Yes, I got all that info from the Marion people. While it is good in some places, it lacks in others. I guess that is the way it is. If anyone would like, I can post information somewhere (just tell me). As for DMA, no the card doesn't use it. The card has local memory (24 of 32 bits implemented) where the samples are stored. It has room for a bunch of samples seperate for each channel (for both input and output). And so it goes. I will look into the other documents for clues. Thanks for pointers, etc... Tom Watson --- Martin Langer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sun, Mar 23, 2003 at 04:05:30PM +0100, PIETER PALMERS wrote: > > The best starting point is gathering info. Without good info, > developement isn't > > easy. But you seem to be lucky, because I found the following on > the website of > > Marian (www.marian.de): > > "Developers of drivers can obtain all information on the hardware > architecture > > of our cards, which is necessary for developing drivers for such > operating > > systems that are not supplied." > > > > I'd say getting this info is the first step. > > > > Next I'd recommend you to read the "Writing an alsa driver" > document by Takashi > > Iwai. It can be found on the ASLA website. You could try and find > an existing > > ALSA driver of a card that resembles your cards architecure. Might > be usefull > > when reading the tutorial. After finishing the tutorial, you'll > know what to do. > > > > btw: are you sure the card doesn't support DMA? The PLX 9052 > supports DMA, and I > > can't imagine Marian not using it. > > Doesn't use DMA?! Maybe this card runs in the same way like the rme > cards > (rme32, rme96, rme9652, hdsp): In this case you copy data from/to the > card and > set a startbit on the register. After that you get an interrupt. You > can > read that details in the RME Digi96 document, which you can found on > ftp.alsa-project.org. Those cards were alsa using a Xilinx FPGA and I > think > that they are in some way related to your Marian/Sek'd. (BTW: RME > Digi32 was > also sold by Sek'd!). I don't know the details about the pdplus > driver, but > maybe it's also interesting for you, because it can be related in > some manner. > > The first step of writing a driver should be the pci detection > without any > driver functionality (study that manual "Writing an alsa driver" > therefore > or look at other pci driver code). And if you can modprobe/rmmod an > empty > module you can start implementing some functionality to it. > > > martin = -- Tom Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com --- This SF.net email is sponsored by:Crypto Challenge is now open! Get cracking and register here for some mind boggling fun and the chance of winning an Apple iPod: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0031en ___ Alsa-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
Re: [Alsa-devel] Marian Marc-8 MIDI sound card (aka SKE'D)
[...] > If > anyone would like, I can post information somewhere (just tell me). Please do. --ms --- This SF.net email is sponsored by:Crypto Challenge is now open! Get cracking and register here for some mind boggling fun and the chance of winning an Apple iPod: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0031en ___ Alsa-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
