Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!tut!santra!kampi.hut.fi!jmunkki
From: jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Sound Manager vs. Sound Driver
Message-ID: <1989Dec26.235903.20138@santra.uucp>
Date: 26 Dec 89 23:59:03 GMT
References: <33381@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: news@santra.uucp (Cnews - USENET news system)
Reply-To: jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 30

In article <33381@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) writes:
>The whole experience left a bad taste. Apple, it isn't enough for you
>to tell me that a new manager is better than an old one. The new manager
>must _actually_be_ better than the old one. Change the code, or change the
>documentation, but the current situation is ridiculous.

I agree. I also think that since all the ads say that the ASC is capable of
sampled stereo sound, the sound manager should be able to generate stereo
sound. It looks like the sound manager was written with music in mind and
not to control the existing hardware.

Another thing: The Macintosh Family Hardware Reference should be renamed
to "Macintosh Hardware Introduction for: Plus, SE, II". I assumed that it
would have contained enough information for me to control the video card
and sound hardware, but it read like all the advertisements, telling me
what the hardware is capable of, but not telling me how to use it.

I know accessing the hardware directly is not generally a good thing to do,
but sometimes it's the only way and sometimes it's a better way. Sometimes
it's best to let the user decide whether to access the hardware directly or
use a software method. If I wrote something that accesses the sound chip
directly, I would also make it an extra feature so that you have to check
a box or make a selection to enable that feature. Also look at what AFT
does to ensure compatibility with exotic video cards: it allows you to use
QuickDraw for animation instead of writing directly.

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|     Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi  jmunkki@fingate.bitnet        I Want   Ne   |
|     Helsinki University of Technology Computing Centre        My Own   XT   |
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