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From: jeh@sisd.kodak.com (Ed Hanway)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga DSP Boards.
Message-ID: <1990Nov20.161034.25281@sisd.kodak.com>
Date: 20 Nov 90 16:10:34 GMT
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David.Plummer@f70.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG (David Plummer) writes:
>I would suggest to you that the low, make that very low, proportion of
>amigas that are equipped with DSP boards would be indicative of the 
>general market's need for such boards.

DSPs won't catch on until someone develops an application for them.
A DSP+ADC+DAC combination, with the proper software, should have many,
many applications in music, and would probably sell Amigas just like the
MIDI port sold Atari STs.  The problem is that at this point, I don't know
of any software being delivered with DSPs, either for the Amiga or any
other platform, other than "developer's toolkits."

>                                        Given that, it would seem that
>the inclusion of said hardware with every NeXT system is a waste, since
>95% of NeXT owners therefore pay for hardware that only 5% of them really
>need or use.
 
I agree that, presently, most NeXT users do not really use the DSP.
However, I've heard that the Motorola 5600mumble used in the NeXT is quite
inexpensive in quantity, so including the DSP is probably not as big a deal
as NeXT would have us believe.  Besides, just because it isn't useful today
doesn't mean that it can't be useful someday.  How many Amiga owners used
hold-and-modify mode in 1985?  How many use the analog joystick inputs today?

--
Ed Hanway --- uunet!sisd!jeh
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