Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!sundc!potomac!jtn
From: jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Lousy input sound
Summary: disk bottleneck
Message-ID: <7079@potomac.ads.com>
Date: 28 Oct 88 04:04:56 GMT
References: <25795@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <898@accelerator> <34059@uunet.UU.NET>
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Arlington VA
Lines: 31

> In article <34059@uunet.UU.NET>, mf@uunet.UU.NET (mf) writes:
> >In article <898@accelerator> Michael S. Czeiszperger writes:
> >at 8 bits that you'd have to buy an A/D converter anyway, but
> >nothings perfect
>
> This may be a conscious choice of NeXT due to the fact that writing to
> the disk is probably *much* slower than reading from it.  Hence,
> sustaining 44.1Khz of stereo (say) is much more feasible as output
> (disk reads) than on input.  If this is indeed the case, the limit is
> inherent to the disk(s) and buying a good A/D might not help at all.

SCSI magenetic disks are available for NeXT that would eliminate this
bottleneck.  I'm not sure what the rational for such low input
resolution is.  Surely an A/D DSP board will be developed to make up
for this anyway (e.g. Digitech and Sound Design boards for the Mac II).

Jobs says that they have a sound library which already contains some
sounds (samples?) and that they will expand the library.  I'm sure that
samples will be available from various sources over time if not created
by the NeXT machine itself.

As for the debate on NeXT's mistake in not including a floppy, can't you
just connect a SCSI-controlled floppy to the SCSI port (if such a thing
exists)?


-- 

John T. Nelson			UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn
Advanced Decision Systems	Internet:  jtn@potomac.ads.com
1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401		(703) 243-1611

Shar and Enjoy!