Apple licensed the official DSP3210 develop kit to the DSP specialists at Spectral Innovations (408-955-0366) for distribution. The original kit price of $1000 has been reduced to $400, also reduced was the amount of technical support.
The official kit did not sell well, at either price. Work has been underway by several enthusiasts to produce a freeware DSP3210 assembler. Version 0.13 is the latest offering before the principal architect, Paul Lalonde was hired for a new full time job (
lalonde@infinity.metrowerks.ca). The early results are promising, some binaries even match byte-for-byte with ones from the official kit.
Paul's advice for potential DSP developers include:
You will also need the following two documents:1. The AT&T "DSP3210 information manual" which describes the DSP's instruction set. You can get it for free from AT&T by phoning them at 1-800-372-2447.
2. The "Centris 660AV & Quadra 840AV" developer note, which describes the DSP operating system (aka ARTA). It's on the more recent Bookmark CDs.
If you are interested in filling the DSP black hole left behind after the push for native Power PC code, whether you are a veteran of the digital signal processing paradigm or a beginner willing to get your feet wet, check out the DSP dedicated development directory at the AV pit stop. It contains the latest Asm3210 package, source code to two DSP programs (ARTAbrot and VUMeters), plus other development tools and instructions.
ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/jwang/develop/
