MOTM

--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, Michael St <mikest@a...> wrote:
> 
> It's been my experience that on the PC it's more of a hardware than 
> software problem. Windows used to be crap, but they've done a fair
> job of addressing what they can [...]

Used to be crap, might be less crap now, but isn't necessarily 
improving!  :)

Just today I helped someone with an XP box suffering from "reboot over 
and over" syndrome.  (Each time very briefly flashing the famous blue 
screen that Microsoft doesn't want you to see anymore with XP.)  
Anyway, corrupt registry - I was able to boot the machine from the XP 
install CD and whack the registry files from the system recovery 
console.  (Had to read through a number of Microsoft tech notes to 
figure out how to get the required security privilege to copy a known 
good registry file out of the "System Volume Information" folder.)



> > Computer recording is pretty much a necessity.  Even if you go
> > out and buy a stand alone 24 channel digital recording system
> > like a Macky, I believe all they do is build a PC computer into
> > the recorder and you're still in Microsoft hell.
> 
> But if you use a mackie 24 you notice it's rather stable.  Why?
> [...]

Hmmm...it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Mackie 
digital recorder (and console) DO NOT run on Windows, could it?  In 
fact, these products run the SMX RTOS.  (See www.smxinfo.com and take 
a look at the customer product page.)  The Mackie digital stuff does 
use some PC hardware (something like a Pentium 166) combined with 
custom hardware for the audio.  (In the d8b, it is a bunch of TI DSPs 
that do the heavy lifting.  The PC is just for the GUI and disk 
storage.)

Certainly being faced with a reduced problem space helps - though it 
might be more accurate to say using the PC platform with RTOS allowed 
them concentrate their development effort on the core app (and custom 
audio hardware) piece of the puzzle.


Seth