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Linux Sound Support w/ the Toast'n Jam PC Card?

Posted by Cliff on from the dial-capability-cards-and-defunct-hardware-makers dept.

strredwolf asks: "I may have a challange for you. I'm looking for specifications on the New Media Toast'n Jam PCMCIA card, also known as a Noteworthy SCSI/Audio combo card. Yeah, I know the Adaptec 152x driver works on this -- but I want to get the audio working on it! Does anyone have one of these cards and have audio working on it via Linux? I'd love to program up a driver for them. I've already looked via Google for both, but aparently, New Media Corporation doesn't exist anymore. And I don't have any documentation on this card with the box (had to pull the drivers through a third party)." Yet another argument for a company at least releasing the specs for their hardware when they go out of business. Has anyone had any luck teasing out soundwaves from their tweeters using this PCMCIA card?

2 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. PCMCIA Sound cards in Linux by GoRK · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is no support for any PCMCIA sound card in Linux. You would have to write quite a lot of kernel glue before you could even begin to write a driver. Sorry :(

    I would suggest using a USB sound device of some sort if this is for a notebook computer. If that is not an option, then use a USB PCMCIA card and run the USB sound dongle off of that. This will be your best bet.

    ~GoRK

  2. Re:Wow by GoRK · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's amazine to me how you can gripe gripe gripe about shitty drivers for a soundcard that over the last two years has become one of the best supported (as far as features vs a windows driver) soundcards in linux!

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/emu10k1

    Your stereo sound comes from your failure to install any of the supporting tools that you need to do full output. [Ie you are a dipshit.] It's kind of like installing windows 2000 onto the same card. It will work (stereo only) - but none of the fancy stuff until you install the creative software.

    With the SB Live! 5.1 in linux you can:
    - Access all of the inputs and outputs on the back of the card, on the internal headers, and on the livedrive, and even some extra audio channels accessible to you if you are handy with a soldering iron.
    - Indepently route, fade, and mix said audio channels around however you want - CD analog internal header plays to rear, PCM plays to front, center, sub, etc. The windows driver does NOT allow you to get this much control of things. With this mixer, you can bypass an effects channel on one source and leave it active on another, etc. You can set up routes so that you can cue music on your headphones plugged into the livedrive while you play other music from the speakers.
    - 5.1 analog output using the digital out as the center/sub analog (analogous to the windows drivers, but the application must support it - xine does)
    - 4.1 output - upmixed from stereo PCM (note that you cambridge speakers will also do this from a regular stereo stream. When you hear sound from the sub/4 speakers in windows, this is what you are hearing. It's just stereo upmixed by the card. The cambridge speakers actually do a better job of this than the card anyway. I'd suggest you try setting your speakers to something like the movie setting and see how it works when you are just playing stereo.
    - Raw digital passthrough of Dolby AC3 and DTS for decoding by your speakers. (Again the applicaton must support it - xine does)
    - OpeaAL 3D positioning with 2, 2.1, 4, 4.1, 5.1 speaker setups (The game must support OpenAL - Admittedly, not a lot do, but such is life)
    - Infrared support with the LiveDrive IR. The interface is funky (The messages come in as MIDI system messages on /dev/midi), so apps like LIRC don't yet support it, but there are a number of launchers, etc. that can use the IR functions of the LiveDrive)
    - full support of external MIDI devices and fm synthesis. Admittedly absent in the OSS driver is the support for wavetable synthesis. This is provided by the ALSA driver if you need it
    - direct access to the emu10k1 DSP and management of patches so you can write your own effects or control your sound in some really cool ways. (The tools contain the as10k1 assembler).. You could put a codec on the card, for instance -- make the emu10k1 itself encode/decode mp3, ac3, or something similar, write a crazy distortion filter, whatever. (The AC3 passthrough uses a custom patch to accomplish it) The possibilities here are really quite endless and something you will never be able to do with the windows driver.

    Incedentally, the driver at http://sourceforge.net/projects/emu10k1 is really just a newer version of the driver in the kernel. The kernel driver (with the tools provided at the above mentioned site) can do all of the things listed above. The main reason to get the driver tarball or CVS version from the emu10k1 folks is if you need good audigy support.

    Happy hacking, dumbass.

    ~GoRK