Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

["Lawson English" <english@primenet.com>]

>But it dosn't do this by synthesis.  It basically has a bank of
>samples and plays them in accordance with MIDI data.  This is more
>like playing MODs or SoundSmith than something like synthLAB, which
>was what Mitch was refering to.

AFAIK, you are incorrect. The QTMA is using a 16-bit synthesizer supplied
by another company. You can also "roll your own," but I'm not certain how
sophisticated this is yet.

THe CPU of the PowerMac is more than equal to the task of providing DSP
services for sound I/O. The problem is that the emulated OS includes the
interupt architecture of the 68K so anything that requires hardware
interrupts is actually loading in parts of the 68K emulator whenever it is
evoked. This can slow things down quite a bit and make sounds  and/or 
video play-back choppy when a large number of instruments are being used
simultaneously.



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Apple is a company, but Macintosh is a community. -S.M. King
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