Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!jarthur!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!mcsun!ukc!acorn!john
From: john@acorn.co.uk (John Bowler)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: audio servers
Summary: Modifying XBell behaviour
Keywords: XBell Extensions
Message-ID: <1976@acorn.co.uk>
Date: 15 Mar 90 20:12:23 GMT
References: <9003121606.AA03191@expo.lcs.mit.edu> <4840@crltrx.crl.dec.com> <1837@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <RUSTY.90Mar12155001@garnet.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: john@acorn.UUCP (John Bowler)
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, UK
Lines: 30

In article <RUSTY.90Mar12155001@garnet.berkeley.edu> rusty@garnet.berkeley.edu (rusty wright) writes:
>I know this isn't very interesting, but has anybody done anything so
>that you can just do things like you can on the Macintosh; i.e. change
>the beep to play a short audio file?  For example, I'd like to be able
>to use the xset command to be able to specify a file to play whenever
>XBell() is used.

I am also interested in this - if anyone is currently investigating an
extension to allow sound samples to be downloaded to the server to replace
the default behaviour of the bell I would be interested in cooperating.
Acorn's hardware has the ability to deal output 8-bit logarithmic sound
samples; our native operating system uses this to allow the bell to be
reprogrammed in the way described and this sounds very popular :-).

>                  (Presumably the server would load the file into
>memory to cut down on disk access when beeping.)  I guess so far this
>would only be possible on the SPARCstation 1 and the Next machine.

Plus ARM based machines - unfortunately the current release of our Un*x
variant doesn't have the programmer's interfaces to drive the hardware.

I do *not* think the server is a suitable place for general sound output - any
program which does this will end up spending a large proportion of its time
synchronising the output unless the kernel facilities provided are very
sophisticated (large buffers, plus timing information, plus advice to the
program about buffer status).  In our interface the programmer just gives the
kernel a sample and waits for it to finish - not much use if you want to
draw wide intersecting lines with bevel joins at the same time :-)

John Bowler (jbowler@acorn.co.uk)