You remark about ISA-8 is correct. And we have opinion about external sound for Sprinter too. But let's wait the result of future poll (Monday).

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PETERS PLUS LTD

>But let's wait the result of future poll (Monday).

Well, I found one disadventage of the poll.
Most of people (all of them?) would like to have
AY in Sprinter as default option. So I don't think that
AY should be put in the poll, as it should be allways in
Sprinter.
I thought only better sound stuff is matter of this discuss.
Don't You think?

Regards,
Yerz/H-PRG

>I state disagreement with info about manufacture of General >Sound cards by "8-bit Company".
>General Sound is trade mark of " GPS COMPEX ". We have >all copyrights.
>We never gave our copyrights to anybody.

Well, yes - if so, it's obvious You are right.
But actually we talk probably mostly about some stuff
'compatible' to GS, I think.
Is it legal to produce hardware which is compatible
with GS?

We want to propose all variants of sound, which can be sufficient for somebody.
But you can see - we not include Beeper.

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PETERS PLUS LTD

It seems i am not the only one confused by the poll...

While most people it seems would like AY in the Sprinter for Spectrum compatibility(which is an important aspect of the Sprinter), i am in all honestly unsure whether i find the prospect of having it for normal Sprinter operation appealing or not. AY is despite some of the amazing stuff done with it, a very primitive sound chip.

Having a computer entirely without sound feels kind of boring, but i can't help getting the feeling that AY is a waste of PLD space, especially if most people are planning to use some other sound card for "serious" things. The advantage of not supporting AY, would then be that there would be more space on the PLD for future hardware upgrades. If GS is still being produced, and is possible to adapt to the current Sprinter ports, i think it sounds like a good (though perhaps a tad expensive) option. Perhaps in the long term, it would be conceivable to provide software support for several kinds of sound cards?

It is my personal opinion that the internal 16 bit sound output of the Sprinter in its current state, despite of buffers (which are a good idea), is maybe a bit limited. Since i have yet to receive my Sprinter board this is not based on first-hand experience, but it looks like programming sound output like COVOX, would make the task cumbersome without IRQ and DMA. Are there any plans to modify the Sprinter Sound System to make it more "user friendly"?

In my view, the ideal scenario would be a built in Spectrum Sound System with SoundBlaster 16-like wave output, and the possibility to add "wavetable" with for instance a GS (like Wave Blaster upgrade for SoundBlaster 16) as an option to reduce cpu load. Of course, if possible, it would still be desirable to have AY support in Spectrum modes for running old applications and demos.

Long post, few questions, much complaining - i stop now =)

>We want to propose all variants of sound, which can be >sufficient for somebody.
>But you can see - we not include Beeper.

Hehehe, I must admit I thought about beeper too. :)
So btw - one little question: has Sprinter a beeper in ZX mode? :)

>While most people it seems would like AY in the Sprinter for Spectrum compatibility(which is an important aspect of the Sprinter), i am in all honestly unsure whether i find the prospect of having it for normal Sprinter operation appealing or not. AY is despite some of the amazing stuff done with it, a very primitive sound chip.
*************
The converstation refers mostly to most-popular standard, like I understood. Only secondly we talk about possibilities of sound-cards (other stuff than AY, GS etc...)


>Having a computer entirely without sound feels kind of boring, but i can't help getting the feeling that AY is a waste of PLD space, especially if most people are planning to use some other sound card for "serious" things. The advantage of not supporting AY, would then be that there would be more space on the PLD for future hardware upgrades. If GS is still being produced, and is possible to adapt to the current Sprinter ports, i think it sounds like a good (though perhaps a tad expensive) option. Perhaps in the long term, it would be conceivable to provide software support for several kinds of sound cards?
__________
I still think if I don't need anything in Sprinter, as I don't use it, I still don't mind it to be there, inside.
Personally I even didn't think that presence of AY in Sprinter is a subject of any disscussions.
Anyway it's only my opinion. I think it has to be in the comp.


>In my view, the ideal scenario would be a built in Spectrum Sound System with SoundBlaster 16-like wave output, and the possibility to add "wavetable" with for instance a GS (like Wave Blaster upgrade for SoundBlaster 16) as an option to reduce cpu load. Of course, if possible, it would still be desirable to have AY support in Spectrum modes for running old applications and demos.
___________
Nothing to add here. I agree with every word.


Greetz,
Yerz/H-PRG

Yes, Sprinter can use Spectrum beeper in Spectrum mode (48 BASIC and 128 BASIC).


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PETERS PLUS LTD

when the poll is over, btw?

Poll about Sprinter's sound will be over after one week.

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PETERS PLUS LTD