[sdiy] Daft Idea, LINUX SYNTH

[Rainer Buchty]

> The digital interface of the future is already here: USB. High
> througput, relatevely low latency, cheap to implement (I don't know
> chip availability, but they are dirty cheap for mobo producer, i.e.
> 1.5 US$ range).

Haven't seen single USB *host* controllers on mobos, AFAIK they usually
are integrated into one of the bridges. The chips you get here and there
are pure slaves which is fine for any attached module but not for the
beast who needs to drive the USB bus.

But even if you rip the chips off one of those PCI USB cards for older
machine you still have the problem that you need a PCI bus. Working and
fully functional PCI host controller cores cost $$$, the stuff you get for
free from the FPGA vendors usually aren't worth the magnetic media they
are stored on...

Finally, at least UHCI controllers need quite some software overhead (see
the Linux UHCI drivers) that you certainly don't want to implement this
mess into a DIY synth. In that case, one could just use an ordinary PC as
the main controller and put some OS of choice on it - probably not the way
most people would like it.

Rainer

-- 

Rainer Buchty, LRR, Technical University of Munich
Phone: +49 89 289-28401, Fax +49 89 289-28232, Room S3240