Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rice!sun-spots-request
From: John_E_Little@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Standalone sound player for SS1
Keywords: Miscellaneous
Message-ID: <3077@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 89 19:24:18 GMT
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Organization: Sun-Spots
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X-Refs:  Original: v8n193
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 198, message 9 of 18

Here's another way to make a standalone sound file player for the
Sparcstation 1:

	cat file.au > /dev/audio

The audio device resets the various hardware registers on the last close.
This means that you can do things like start the sound program, select the
speaker and change the volume, then use cat to send files to the device
and get the previously selected options.  As long as sound is running (it
can be iconic), you get the selected characteristics.  The chip has a
bunch of unused capabilities, including single and dual tone generators
(you can get DTMF), a bunch of gain controls, and the completely unused
ISDN capabilities.   Device ioctl calls give you complete access to all of
the chip's registers (even the ISDN ones) so you can experiment to your
heart's content.

You could also write a small program that just twiddles chip registers,
then use cat for all of your actual output. 

	John Little
	jel@cup.portal.com