Re: ae's sonic blaster: question...

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Sagochangi <sagochangi@aol.com> wrote:

> i just bought one of applied engineering's sonic blasters for my rom 03,
> and everything seems to be running well.  the midi mapping hasn't improved
> any, but at least i can't hear my mouse whirring as background noise on my
> speakers any more.  i've got the card installed in a slot, but the slot
> isn't mapped to the card.  all it's doing, near as i can tell, is drawing
> power and intercepting audio signals from the jumper block it's connected
> to on the motherboard.
> 
> gs/os is currently using the apple.midi driver for midi support, so my
> question is this: were there any drivers for the card, to replace
> apple.midi, or for any other capacity?  and will i need to map the slot to
> the card to enable those (theoretical) features?

MIDI has nothing to do with stereo cards.

The Apple.MIDI driver is specifically for using an Apple MIDI adaptor
connected to a serial port (and any attached MIDI input or output
device(s), such as a keyboard).  There is also a "Card.MIDI" driver (I
don't recall the precise name), which works with 6850-based MIDI
interface cards like the Passport card.

You can have software that interprets MIDI data and plays derived audio
internally, but this doesn't involve MIDI drivers in any way.  The
MIDISynth toolset (used by synthLab) is an example of this.

All the stereo card does is to demultiplex the audio channels produced
by the Ensoniq DOC chip, amplifying in the process.  Software is
completely unaware of its presence, except for special configuration
options (e.g. volume setting), which would generally be done through a
control panel.

The card may also provide a method for digitizing audio (mono only, in
most cards).

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand