The 5503 Ensoniq Digital Oscillator Chip (DOC) has 32 sound oscillators. Each of
them are capable of making an independent sound. Two oscillators paired up are a
generator. The paired generator arrangement is favored by most IIgs sound/music
programs, because that arrangement offers greater flexibility with better sound
quality.
The DOC produces 8-bit waveforms, with a center line at $80 (128 decimal).
Reserved for 'stop' is $00 or (0 decimal). If the sample value of 0 is
encountered by a DOC oscillator, it will halt immediately and will not produce
any more sound. The DOC also has an 8-bit volume register for every oscillator
using a linear slope. The dynamic range of the DOC (the 'space' between the
softest and loudest sounds which are produced) being approximately 42 dB.
Each oscillator has a 16 bit frequency register, ranging from 0 to 65535. In the
normal DOC configuration, each step of this frequency register increases the play
rate by 51 Hz.
Oscillator Modes
When oscillators are paired as generators, four possible modes can be used. These
four modes as termed, are listed below.
Free (Free-run) (Loop) : The oscillator simply plays the waveform and stops.
No interaction with it's 'pair' occurs.
Swap (Loop) : Only one oscillator of the pair is active at a time. When one
stops, its pair starts immediately.
Shot : The oscillator plays the waveform and if it reaches the waveforms end
without encountering a zero, it starts over (loops) at the beginning.
Sync (AM): One oscillator of the pair modulates the volume of the other
paired oscillator with the waveform it's playing. Unique and very effective.
But, not commonly used.
As for why this chip never found its way into a Mac, you can blame the Beatles:
Though including a professional-grade sound chip in the Apple IIGS was hailed by developers and users both, and hopes were high that it would be added to the Macintosh, it drew a lawsuit by Apple Records. As part of an earlier trademark dispute with the record company, Apple Computer had agreed not to release music-related products. Apple Records considered the inclusion of the Ensoniq chip in the IIGS as a violation of that agreement. Though the IIGS was allowed to keep the Ensoniq, Apple has not included dedicated hardware sound synthesizers in any of its Macintosh models since (though of course, third-party products exist).
I'm about to switch my Vista install over to "Windows Classic" but I kinda like the eye candy (20" LCD with a Win2K looking desktop just doesn't justify the $700 I paid a couple years back for the monitor).
The first thing I do with a fresh WinXP install is shut off that gawdawful Luna (?) desktop and revert to something that looks more like Win2K. Less space used by UI widgets means more space for program data, and it doesn't look so cartoonish.
you could theoretically demux up to 8 channels (with 4 voices per channel)
According to Wikipedia, the chip did indeed have 32 channels.
8*4=32. I think there's some confusion here over terminology. Each of the 32 oscillators on the Ensoniq 5503 counts as a voice. These get dumped into one output channel by a stock IIGS for mono output, but they can be demuxed by relatively simple circuitry into as many as 8 channels (though 2 was more common, for stereo output). "Voices" refers to the on-chip oscillators, while "channels" refers to analog outputs that drive speakers.
but I can tell you, I had a lot more useful things on my C64 than my Apple II, and a lot more fun games too. It may have been better as a toy, but it was better at productivity also.
Flame on!
How do you figure that when the C64 had no 80-column display capability (add-on or otherwise, AFAIK), no provision for adding more RAM (my IIe was bumped up to 1 MB at one point, and I had AppleWorks documents that used most of it), and a floppy drive that was almost as slow as the cassette recorder it was supposed to replace? An Apple II with nothing in the expansion slots may have only been comparable to a Commodore 64, but the slots let you add on whatever capabilities you needed--more memory, a faster processor, better graphics and sound, more storage (including SCSI and IDE hard drives), etc. That, in turn, was what let you get useful work done with it, which elevated it beyond "toy" status.
Me, for one...started with my grandfather's TRS-80 CoCo, got a TI-99/4A as my first computer at home, and finally got serious about programming with an Apple IIe. First time I did anything with a Commodore 64 (compatible) was just a couple of years ago with those joysticks that were available. I added a keyboard port to one, but never got around to trying to get it to do anything really useful (it'd take at least a floppy drive for that, and 1541s are kinda thin on the ground (read: nonexistent) at my place, compared to Disk IIs).
The "Commie 64" got a brief mention in the blurb on the machine that did make the cut--the Apple II: "Beating the IBM PC 5150 to market by four years, the Apple II (and its cousins, the II+, IIe, and IIc) quickly became the computer for people who wanted a machine that actually did something (competitors like the Commodore 64 and TRS-80 Color Computer were mere toys by comparison)." (Their words, not mine, so put away your -1 Flamebait mod.)
Odd that the left out the IIGS and IIc Plus, though, while they listed the other models. The IIc Plus wasn't on the market long (don't think I've ever actually seen one myself), but the IIGS was a big step in capabilities that competed with the Amiga and Atari ST on their own turf, yet was nearly 100% backward-compatible with all of the Apple II software already available.
Compared to the sound chip in the Apple IIGS from 1986, it was crap. The GS had an Ensoniq chip with 32 digital channels.
While the default sound output was mono, you could theoretically demux up to 8 channels (with 4 voices per channel). I don't think anyone ever did more than 2 channels, though...sound cards for the IIGS are usually little more than demuxers and mixers, with maybe a power amplifier thrown in to drive unamplified speakers. It's only been fairly recently that multichannel audio from computers has become somewhat common.
Are those street-legal in the U.S.? My understanding was that they're not, at least not yet.
I've seen one tooling around Las Vegas. It's probably one of the few cars that makes even a Prius look attractive by comparison.:-P It doesn't look particularly safe, either...looks too tall for its wheelbase and its track. I wouldn't want to have to jump out of the way of an idiot driver while driving one, but then it's probably not much different from an H2 with a lift kit in that regard.
That is a realistic solution. Multiple cars. If something could be worked out with the insurance companies, so that each car added didn't increase the cost dramatically, people might just have use appropriate cars.
There should be some discounts available from your insurer for having multiple cars and/or having more cars than drivers. My daily driver is an '04 Alero that doesn't do too badly at the pump (given that it's a V6 instead of a 4-banger), but I also have a '77 Cutlass Supreme Brougham that gets maybe 2000 miles per year on it. The Cutlass adds maybe $200 or so per year (in a state where insurance will normally set you back $1000+). It's fun to keep around and take to the occasional car show (it was my daily driver until 2002).
there are lots of sections of highway where the posted limit is 75
Are you talking about US states?
I-40 across most of Arizona and I-15 north of Las Vegas are just two examples I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others, but those are what I've driven in the not-too-distant past.
Jobs didn't want that, though. He didn't want universally compatible music, he wanted ipod-and-only-ipod compatible music, which is why these new higher priced songs are only offered in AAC. It allows him to keep leveraging his near-monopoly between itunes and ipods in the same manner that Apple-DRM-Protected files did.
Was I only imagining that my Palm Tungsten T was playing AAC audio (downloaded from the iTunes Music Store and decrypted with the software available at the time)? Is the other poster who said the Zune can play AAC audio BSing us all?
Maybe it's just that Apple wants to offer a better product. AAC delivers better audio quality at a given bitrate than MP3, and it's supported by a wider variety of hardware and software than you think. Just because it doesn't work with your no-name fresh-off-the-boat $30 player doesn't mean it sucks. I ripped my CD collection into 192-kbps AAC (with K3B and FAAC, not with iTunes), and everything plays on my Linux boxen, my Mac, my iPod, and my Treo (would still work on the Tungsten if I could find it) without issue.
Google suggests driving time between Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. is about 4 1/2 hours (need to adjust for traffic, of course). You can park exactly at your destination and use your car while you are there. You can leave at precisely the time you want to leave and not worry about getting to the train station.
On the other hand, gas alone will cost significantly more than $42. And you can relax, nap, read, work, etc. in the train.
With a train or (more likely) flight, you'll need to rent a car at your destination to get around...figure on at least $25-$30 per day in most cities for a midsize car.
I can drive from Las Vegas to San Diego (~330 miles, about a third longer than the ~240 miles from DC to Pittsburgh) in about five hours on one tank of gas, which is maybe $35-$38 at the prices I've been paying lately. Las Vegas to Phoenix (~270 miles) leaves me with about a quarter-tank when I get there. Unless you're driving an old tank of a car or a full-size pickup or SUV, I don't see how you're going to burn through enough gas on a day trip to exceed the cost of airfare (or in the small handful of places that offer it, train service).
(That's in a 2004 Oldsmobile Alero with a V6, from which I've gotten 28-31 mpg at 75-80 mph; YMMV. If I took my '77 Cutlass Supreme instead of my Alero, it'd burn through about twice as much gas to cover the same distance.)
On top of that, 8 hours to cover just 240 miles is nuts. I have better uses for my time.
In general, I don't think Americans even think of trains as an option.
Out west, they literally aren't an option. Passenger service to/from Las Vegas ended a decade ago. Even if they still ran here, wasting a day each way on a weekend trip would be teh suck.
High speed trains are almost a non-starter in America. Why? Property rights.
Hm, wasn't there an interesting ruling about eminent domain not too long ago ?
I think the word you meant was "infamous." Fortunately, there's legislative action in many states to repair the damage to property rights done by Kelo v. New London.
ACLU's Charles Rust-Tierney Busted For Hard-Core Kiddie Porn
The ACLU's crusades don't always make a lot of sense, but its campaign to legalize kiddie porn is quite understandable in light of Charles Rust-Tierney's arrest Friday for possessing child pornography. Rust-Tierney used to be president of the ACLU's Virginia chapter.
Investigations revealed that "Charles Rust-Tierney has subscribed to multiple child pornography websites over a period of years." He admitted downloading videos and images from kiddie porn websites and collecting them on CDs.
The guy's no lightweight; he likes the hard stuff:
The videos described in the complaint depict graphic forcible intercourse with prepubescent females. One of the girls is described in court documents as being "seen and heard crying", another is described as being "bound by rope."
Rust-Tierney has been coaching various youth sports teams. On behalf of the ACLU, he advocated against restricting Internet access in public libraries. By the way, his wife Diann, also a moonbat activist, serves as executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty -- which makes you wonder what else the Rust-Tierneys have been up to.
The day that the criminal syndicate that calls itself the "American Civil Liberties Union" is broken up and liquidated cannot come soon enough.
I'm not a big tv person, so I don't know if newer 4:3 TV sets have component inputs, but I know older ones (i.e. - mine) certainly do not.
I have a 27" flat-tube Akai that I bought back in 2002 or 2003 that has a 480i component input. It also has a "squeeze" mode that displays widescreen sources at full resolution.
I mostly agree with you, except that I think FORTRAN needs to stay in the curriculum, at least in a survey course. Unfortunately there are a lot of science departments that use FORTRAN exclusively, because older professors have decades of code and no motivation to learn a new language.
Math, too...I had to pick up enough FORTRAN to get by in a computational linear algebra course. That particular course (as opposed to the regular linear algebra course) was (and is) a degree requirement.
Give me a moment. I've still gotta figure out the six nested timing loops I need to toggle the speaker cone in and out in such a way that it sounds like a cricket instead of a bird.
That'll give you one cricket-like chirp. Throw some more loops around it to make it repeat with the right cadence.:-)
(Remove the dots...they're there only to get the columns to line up.)
Re:This whole article is an embarrassment to Slash
on
AppleTV Hits the Streets
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't know how rip a dvd into h.264/quicktime container and retain 5.1 audio. I wont buy any of product like this now, but as soon as I can solve this audio problem I will.
If you transcode the audio to AAC, you can mux it with H.264 video into an MPEG-4/QuickTime container. If you do that, though, you won't be able to pass it through to your receiver over S/PDIF.
I only transcode audio for mono & stereo sources. For multichannel audio, I leave it in AC3 and mux it with H.264 video into a Matroska container.
Creating an.mp4 file with H.264 & AAC looks something like this:
Both assume that the input is NTSC video that can be inverse-telecined to produce film-rate progressive-scan video. ${1} is the source file, ${2} is the destination file (without extension), and ${3} is a "crop=w:h:x:y" parameter to get rid of any black bars around the video. On a Gentoo box, you'll want to emerge mplayer gpac mkvtoolnix to get the necessary software.
Wow...I'm a tard.:-| I didn't notice that the 5550 also prints up to tabloid size. The 3800, of course, only prints up to legal size (and ours has only had letter-size run through it).
Slashdot Mirror
No filters, but one oscillator in a pair can modulate the volume of the other:
As for why this chip never found its way into a Mac, you can blame the Beatles:
That annoyance only comes into play for outbound mail. I'd like to see Cox try keeping my mail from arriving here...that'd be amusing to watch.
The true geek runs his own mail server.
The first thing I do with a fresh WinXP install is shut off that gawdawful Luna (?) desktop and revert to something that looks more like Win2K. Less space used by UI widgets means more space for program data, and it doesn't look so cartoonish.
8*4=32. I think there's some confusion here over terminology. Each of the 32 oscillators on the Ensoniq 5503 counts as a voice. These get dumped into one output channel by a stock IIGS for mono output, but they can be demuxed by relatively simple circuitry into as many as 8 channels (though 2 was more common, for stereo output). "Voices" refers to the on-chip oscillators, while "channels" refers to analog outputs that drive speakers.
Flame on!
How do you figure that when the C64 had no 80-column display capability (add-on or otherwise, AFAIK), no provision for adding more RAM (my IIe was bumped up to 1 MB at one point, and I had AppleWorks documents that used most of it), and a floppy drive that was almost as slow as the cassette recorder it was supposed to replace? An Apple II with nothing in the expansion slots may have only been comparable to a Commodore 64, but the slots let you add on whatever capabilities you needed--more memory, a faster processor, better graphics and sound, more storage (including SCSI and IDE hard drives), etc. That, in turn, was what let you get useful work done with it, which elevated it beyond "toy" status.
Me, for one...started with my grandfather's TRS-80 CoCo, got a TI-99/4A as my first computer at home, and finally got serious about programming with an Apple IIe. First time I did anything with a Commodore 64 (compatible) was just a couple of years ago with those joysticks that were available. I added a keyboard port to one, but never got around to trying to get it to do anything really useful (it'd take at least a floppy drive for that, and 1541s are kinda thin on the ground (read: nonexistent) at my place, compared to Disk IIs).
Odd that the left out the IIGS and IIc Plus, though, while they listed the other models. The IIc Plus wasn't on the market long (don't think I've ever actually seen one myself), but the IIGS was a big step in capabilities that competed with the Amiga and Atari ST on their own turf, yet was nearly 100% backward-compatible with all of the Apple II software already available.
While the default sound output was mono, you could theoretically demux up to 8 channels (with 4 voices per channel). I don't think anyone ever did more than 2 channels, though...sound cards for the IIGS are usually little more than demuxers and mixers, with maybe a power amplifier thrown in to drive unamplified speakers. It's only been fairly recently that multichannel audio from computers has become somewhat common.
I've seen one tooling around Las Vegas. It's probably one of the few cars that makes even a Prius look attractive by comparison. :-P It doesn't look particularly safe, either...looks too tall for its wheelbase and its track. I wouldn't want to have to jump out of the way of an idiot driver while driving one, but then it's probably not much different from an H2 with a lift kit in that regard.
There should be some discounts available from your insurer for having multiple cars and/or having more cars than drivers. My daily driver is an '04 Alero that doesn't do too badly at the pump (given that it's a V6 instead of a 4-banger), but I also have a '77 Cutlass Supreme Brougham that gets maybe 2000 miles per year on it. The Cutlass adds maybe $200 or so per year (in a state where insurance will normally set you back $1000+). It's fun to keep around and take to the occasional car show (it was my daily driver until 2002).
I-40 across most of Arizona and I-15 north of Las Vegas are just two examples I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others, but those are what I've driven in the not-too-distant past.
Was I only imagining that my Palm Tungsten T was playing AAC audio (downloaded from the iTunes Music Store and decrypted with the software available at the time)? Is the other poster who said the Zune can play AAC audio BSing us all?
Maybe it's just that Apple wants to offer a better product. AAC delivers better audio quality at a given bitrate than MP3, and it's supported by a wider variety of hardware and software than you think. Just because it doesn't work with your no-name fresh-off-the-boat $30 player doesn't mean it sucks. I ripped my CD collection into 192-kbps AAC (with K3B and FAAC, not with iTunes), and everything plays on my Linux boxen, my Mac, my iPod, and my Treo (would still work on the Tungsten if I could find it) without issue.
What ATM lets you change the PIN on your ATM card? That sounds like it'd be a security hole bigger than Mr. Goatse.cx's backside.
With a train or (more likely) flight, you'll need to rent a car at your destination to get around...figure on at least $25-$30 per day in most cities for a midsize car.
I can drive from Las Vegas to San Diego (~330 miles, about a third longer than the ~240 miles from DC to Pittsburgh) in about five hours on one tank of gas, which is maybe $35-$38 at the prices I've been paying lately. Las Vegas to Phoenix (~270 miles) leaves me with about a quarter-tank when I get there. Unless you're driving an old tank of a car or a full-size pickup or SUV, I don't see how you're going to burn through enough gas on a day trip to exceed the cost of airfare (or in the small handful of places that offer it, train service).
(That's in a 2004 Oldsmobile Alero with a V6, from which I've gotten 28-31 mpg at 75-80 mph; YMMV. If I took my '77 Cutlass Supreme instead of my Alero, it'd burn through about twice as much gas to cover the same distance.)
On top of that, 8 hours to cover just 240 miles is nuts. I have better uses for my time.
Out west, they literally aren't an option. Passenger service to/from Las Vegas ended a decade ago. Even if they still ran here, wasting a day each way on a weekend trip would be teh suck.
I think the word you meant was "infamous." Fortunately, there's legislative action in many states to repair the damage to property rights done by Kelo v. New London.
People know you by the company you keep:
The day that the criminal syndicate that calls itself the "American Civil Liberties Union" is broken up and liquidated cannot come soon enough.
Sophistication? Around here? Inconceivable!
My DVD player doesn't, either. It's a pity that yours appears to be broken.
STFU, liar. That "600k dead" figure that you and your fellow travelers like to parade around has long since been debunked.
I have a 27" flat-tube Akai that I bought back in 2002 or 2003 that has a 480i component input. It also has a "squeeze" mode that displays widescreen sources at full resolution.
Math, too...I had to pick up enough FORTRAN to get by in a computational linear algebra course. That particular course (as opposed to the regular linear algebra course) was (and is) a degree requirement.
]1 BIT $C030
]2 DEY
That'll give you one cricket-like chirp. Throw some more loops around it to make it repeat with the right cadence. :-)
(Remove the dots...they're there only to get the columns to line up.)
If you transcode the audio to AAC, you can mux it with H.264 video into an MPEG-4/QuickTime container. If you do that, though, you won't be able to pass it through to your receiver over S/PDIF.
I only transcode audio for mono & stereo sources. For multichannel audio, I leave it in AC3 and mux it with H.264 video into a Matroska container.
Creating an .mp4 file with H.264 & AAC looks something like this:
#!/bin/shd irect_pred=auto -oac copy -o /dev/null "${1}" && \d irect_pred=auto -oac copy -of rawvideo -o "${2}.264" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf harddup -ovc copy -oac faac -faacopts br=128:mpeg=4 -of rawaudio -o "${2}.aac" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=1:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=2:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 MP4Box "${2}.mp4" -fps 23.976 -add "${2}.264" -add "${2}.aac" && \
rm "${2}.264" "${2}.aac"
Creating an .mkv file with H.264 & AC3 looks something like this:
#!/bin/shd irect_pred=auto -oac copy -o /dev/null "${1}" && \d irect_pred=auto -oac copy -of rawvideo -o "${2}.264" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf harddup -ovc copy -oac copy -of rawaudio -o "${2}.ac3" "${1}" && \
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=1:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 mencoder -vf pullup,softskip,${3},harddup -ofps 24000/1001 -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=1400:pass=2:turbo=2:keyint=240:bframes=3:
nice -n 18 MP4Box "${2}.mp4" -fps 23.976 -add "${2}.264" && \
nice -n 18 mkvmerge -o "${2}.mkv" "${2}.mp4" "${2}.ac3" && \
rm "${2}.264" "${2}.ac3" "${2}.mp4"
Both assume that the input is NTSC video that can be inverse-telecined to produce film-rate progressive-scan video. ${1} is the source file, ${2} is the destination file (without extension), and ${3} is a "crop=w:h:x:y" parameter to get rid of any black bars around the video. On a Gentoo box, you'll want to emerge mplayer gpac mkvtoolnix to get the necessary software.
Wow...I'm a tard. :-| I didn't notice that the 5550 also prints up to tabloid size. The 3800, of course, only prints up to legal size (and ours has only had letter-size run through it).