edit: STEREO Sound Output on a Duo Might Still Work! :rolleyes:

The Bare@$$ Duo230 mobo (eBay spare) is plugged directly into the logic board connector on my DuoDock I with some standoffs to hold it up. I'd tested it first plugged into a MiniDock and it booted from a CD, showing video on the auxiliary monitor from the MiniDock Video Out, but I couldn't do anything with it with no LCD Display to move the menu's to the monitor. :rolleyes:

I thought I was screwed because I'd torn the Dock I apart and couldn't use the extra Dock II because I'd broken the ROM, which works great with an LCD on the 2300c, but was useless with a bare 230 mobo! Couldn't get it to do anything at all at first, but on a hunck, by fiddling with the motorized docking mechanism (removed previously) limit switches, (or docking state?) I got it to boot up! I'm trying to figure out what an arrow pointing to the top front of the Dock means, (missing duo? ) it's a very strange error message!

Well, to make a LOOOOOOOONG story short, I now have stereo output from a NuBus ProAudioSpectrum 16 Card under 7.5.1 using the same HDD from my tests in the IIci. The DuoBoomBoxDock concept has been proven (FINALLY! ) and the hack is feasible using a Dock 1 mobo with a 68k Duo as the worst case scenario. The NuBus MiniDock hack will be much more elegant/battery friendly solution and my ROMless Dock II tests indicate that it's a real possibility!

jt .
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

Sounds good.

If I had a DUO I'd try it out.

quote:

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Sounds good.

If I had a DUO I'd try it out.

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Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 09 Sep 2002 06:59:47

nehoo! I FINALLY found some halfway decent info on the Sound Accelerator (not the II d****T!!!!) but the block diagram makes me think that once this puppy nabs some sound data to chew on it'll keep the freakin' Duo in the dark about it! Looks like it'll (or the first rev can neway!) talk to my DAQ Card over a jumper cable an just chucks the stereo channels right out the backside 1/4" Stereo Phono Jack!

YO! markymark, have you found this guys thesis yet?

http://comstar.csusa.net/~gan/Gan/Education/NUS/Physics/MScThesis/Chapter7.html

yippeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've still got a shot!

jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

There's some good info in the links.

I got hold of (not easily) the DigiDesign SDK so programming the AudioMedia or Sound Accelerator cards is no problem now.

Hopefully I'll finish off the DSP56K version soon.
At the moment I'm about 95% finished but I've got other things to finish first.

About the Sound Aceelerator II interface
it has a
25 Pin Interface cable and a 1/4 inch Stereo Monitoring Output Jack on the NuBus Card.

see

topic.asp.TOPIC_ID=1469.html&whichpage=2&ARCHIVE=

for a pic and see if it's the same as yours.

The PAS16 and mpegdec should work ok.

A 68040 40Mhz is the best to use for higher quality.

MpegDec sends out all it's samples in 16 bits so a 16 bit sound card like the PAS16 should handle it ok.

Downsampling by 2 and selecting the Sound Managers output freq to 22050Hz (if it's possible) would be the fastest option.

I suppose it would be similar sounding to a 840av with 16 bit audio output.

Forgot to mention that if anyone wants to use MpegDec for DigiDesign Nubus Cards (AudioMedia II Sound Accelerator II) a memory upgrade is needed.

The cards need more onboard memory to hold the mp3 decoding tables.

The DigiDesign cards were not shipped with a lot of memory because sram memory in those days (early 90's) cost quite a bit.

See

topic.asp.TOPIC_ID=1469.html&whichpage=2&ARCHIVE=

for more info.

quote:

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There's some good info in the links.

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I thought you'd like that thesis!

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I got hold of (not easily) the DigiDesign SDK so programming the AudioMedia or Sound Accelerator cards is no problem now.

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So you've probably already seen a block diagram, huh? I thought I found a real goodie for you!

quote:

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Hopefully I'll finish off the DSP56K version soon.
At the moment I'm about 95% finished but I've got other things to finish first.

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Cool, email me whatever you want tested . . .

quote:

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About the Sound Aceelerator II interface
it has a 25 Pin Interface cable and a 1/4 inch Stereo Monitoring Output Jack on the NuBus Card.

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YAH! Thassa one! Actually, I just need pinouts, but I'm really glad to have confirmation that I can plug a Headphone jack into it. I was pretty sure what it was, but you never know. As far as identification of the card goes, it has "DigiDesign Sound Aceelerator II Rev B" silk screened all over the freakin thing! . . . but the picture and connector specs match up too!

quote:

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The PAS16 and mpegdec should work ok.

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Now THAT'S really GREAT news! I have them for NuBus and LCIII PDS! Any chance of finding a hacked version of a CD Player that'd feed the 16 or the II on a Duo anywhere?

quote:

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A 68040 40Mhz is the best to use for higher quality.

MpegDec sends out all it's samples in 16 bits so a 16 bit sound card like the PAS16 should handle it ok.

Downsampling by 2 and selecting the Sound Managers output freq to 22050Hz (if it's possible) would be the fastest option.

---

22.050 kHz is one of the choices in the Sound Out screen of the Sound control panel under 7.5.1, it's probably just close enough! I ran the lower level of the Update 2 on imy 7.5.1 install and Sound Manager Dissapeared, dunno what that's all about.

BTW, I've got a bunch of Sound Manager 3.0 info on the Nov.'93 Dev. CD if you're interested, I must have most of them from Feb.'92 thru March'97, but I'm sure you've probably already got ALL of them! If you have any documentation, drivers or software for my S.A.II, feel free to forward it! I'll email you again from the main addy so it doesn't need to go thru mac.con.

quote:

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I suppose it would be similar sounding to a 840av with 16 bit audio output.

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THE Duo 230!!!!!!!! I guess you mean the 280, my 270c board has a funky wandering mouse ADB glitch (with nothing plugged in!). So it's the 280 which tested out fine and the 230 for now.

Does the PAS16 speed anything up at all by diverting a little of the I/0 overhead from the CPU? I'm glad you jumped into this thread, nobody here or on fritter seems to get into this kinda stuff for some reason.

jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

The memory upgrade is'nt hard to do.

It involves replacing the sram chips with higher capacity chips (I used 486 motherboard sram cache chips) and setting a few jumpers.

If you don't know the jumper settings you can just play around with different jumper settings and test that you get the maximum memory config using

ftp://biols.susx.ac.uk/pub/paulr/synth/synth087.sea.hqx

The above app gives you the DigiDesign cards memory config sizes in it's about box.

DuoBoomBoxDock Update II: (the 'fritter version) . . . didn't feel like starting a new topic here.

Development of the DSP rev of mpegdec was put on hold, so I went ahead and tested the Stereo I/O on the VideoVision Studio card like I'd figured on doing in the first 'fritter DuoBoomBoxDock Update.

Actually, I never even got that far, eudimorphodon had raised a question over there about using the main screen on the Duo as opposed to one attached to the VidCap card's output. *see footnote

Whatever . . . the docs make it clear that the VideoVision Studio's Audio I/O won't act as a means of doing stereo output from a Duo.  It's not actually an I/O channel for the host system at all, even on a stereo Mac. You need to run a patch cord from the speaker jack to the VVS breakout box's Audio Inputs just to get system sounds onto a video soundtrack. :rolleyes:

If the VVS would have worked as a sound card for MP3 output, I might have incorporated a black GameCUBE LCD into the BoomBoxDock as an added feature as a backup plan for using the VVS. It'd look very nice next to the Duo LCD and would have been fun. But VidCap's a silly idea on even a 2300c and not really within the original spec or intent of the DuoBoomBoxDock project.

Looks like the SoundAccelerator II will be the next experiment when I have some time to play. If anybody has info on some combination of system level, Sound Manager and QuickTime revs that might have a chance of playing nicely with the PAS 16 drivers for circumventing the A(bominable)pple Sound Chip affliction of the Duos, feel free to reply!

I haven't given up entirely on the PAS16 QUITE yet!

jt

* Interesting VidCap card observations:

In trying to verify that the VideoVisionStudio works at all by testing it in my Radius 81/110 clone a couple of interesting things turned up. It seems I can't move the window to the mobo's video out monitor, even though the system is able to take a screen shot of the contents of the VideoViewer (Radius VVS utility) window. This seems strange to me, because the 630 video system pipes the video straight to the display and VRAM copied to the clipboard in a screenshot gives a blank screen image. IIRC, the VideoPlayer window on my 6360 could be moved from one monitor to another when I played with it after installing a PCI video card. Dunno, can anybody verify which behavior AV Macs exhibit in a screenshot?

If you want to see something REALLY strange, kick a 630 Video System Card's host down to grayscale mode and take a peek at a video feed in the VideoPlayer window!

The REALLY annoying discovery was that the VideoVisionStudio is incompatible with the IntelliColor20 I use as the monitor for my VCR and DVD players in the VideoRack without a special video cable AND a special serial cable. That's too bad, because the tests I did proved that a full 640x480 video feed is much superior to the line doubled 320x480 display that the 630 Video System provides. For VHS it's great, but letterboxed DVDs don't fare well at all, they're watchable, but not better than a VHS image.

jt .
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

Anyway this is a bit OT but I remember a while back we spoke about the wired4DVD decoder card and I still think you need to hook yourself up with one of these! I also have a 6360, unfortunately I never got around to testing the DVD decoder in my 6360 before I ripped it apart to start on my PCC and my 3.3v regulator is screwy so I still can't test it. The manual says a 200 MHz machine is the minimum but so did the manual for an 8x CD writer I set someone up with a while ago!

quote:

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mmmmm, video rack I wouldn't mind a similar setup but my g/f wouldn't like it!

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I just about laughed . . . the ex-SAF woulda HATED IT!
. . . then I choked on my coffee!
I'd realized my grlf hasn't seen the video rack IRL yet . . .

quote:

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Anyway this is a bit OT but I remember a while back we spoke about the wired4DVD decoder card and I still think you need to hook yourself up with one of these!

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OT is my middle name!

I kinda like the real DVD player, I think what I need is the tuner box from ViewSonic to throw a better resolution right onto the CRT. What's the pixel count on the wired4DVD card's output?

jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 05 Feb 2003 07:59:46

quote:

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I generally ran my screen at 1152*870 although I sometime run it higher

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jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

I am almost 100% certain that the screen does not switch resolution when you use the card, actually the more I thin about it the more certain I am as I don't remember the menu being smaller than usual when i brought it up to quit the wired 4DVD player app.

I'm pretty sure it's possible to run it in a window as well. I might quickly put the 9600 back together tonight or tomorrow a.m. and do some quick tests. Of course that means putting the IDE card / voodoo 5 / wired4dvd / DVD drive etc back in I'm not going to have the 9600 much longer though. Actually I've still got my PowerTowerPro I have a Quad 132 card in there so I could see how the thing runs with processors below 200 MHz. I haven't actually used it though since I got my cube a few months ago.

Anywho, the best things for me about the card are
Works with any video card (may need some extra VGA to Mac adaptors unless you can find a boxed one but no bigee)
can output the sound to an external 5.1 decoder etc
can output straight to a TV (s-video I think)
it's a small PCI card

you can still find the specs for this thing online although I can't remember the site but xlr8yourmac.com has a fairly complete review.

I haven't experienced the contrast problems that he mentions in the review. I'm not sure if it's because I am running new software or what though.

quote:

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it runs full screen so everything goes black and you get an appropriately sized piece of video in the middle, obviously the video doesn't always fill the screen if it;s widescreen or whatever.

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jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

Besides 75 USD (typical eBay price) is a lot less than 400 USD!

quote:

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Besides 75 USD (typical eBay price) is a lot less than 400 USD!

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But, I haven't got a DVD drive in the G4-DigitalAudio! (or on any computer) Add in the progressive scan input support, better resolution for both VHS and composite/S-Video feeds from my VideoVision Studio card etc., besides just my (paid for already) DVD player, and then consider the remote control, tuner and cable box features and standalone capability (NO CPU REQ!) and the N6 makes for a MUCH more versatile solution overall!

jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

from the 'friter thread:

quote:

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I yanked the Sound Accelerator II out of the BoomBoxDock testbed to try it in a Quadra 700 to see if the noisiness was from my testbed setup or a defect in the card itself and gave up due to silly complications.

But I threw the PAS16 back into the BoomBoxDock testbed to test with the System/Driver combos that were giving me UGLY STEREO from the SAII's headset jack and now I'm getting clean, full speed 16/44  STEREO output from a freakin' Duo 230 via the PAS16!  

. . . ole' Murphy musta fallen asleep sometime late this afternoon . . .  ::)

MCC's "Twist-N-Shout" sounds AWESOME!  

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jt ™.
Trash Hauler: call sign: eight-ball
C.O. AC-130H SpecOps 68kMLAAF

G4From128k

cool JT! I love to see the progress of people who actually have their macs with them to do hacks on...

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