<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div dir="ltr"></div><div dir="ltr">In the lost-in-time department, my group at Digital Cambridge Research lab in 1993 did an audio interface patterned after the X Window system. Paper in the Summer USENIX: <a href="https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/cinci93/gettys.html">https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/cinci93/gettys.html</a></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">For extra fun, the lab director of CRL at the time was Vic Vyssotsky.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">But there must have been some Bell work, because around 1983 (?) when I was doing Etherphone at PARC I visited John DeTreville at Holmdel. He was building a voice - over - Ethernet system as well.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">-Larry</div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Jan 6, 2025, at 4:51 PM, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><span>segaloco via TUHS wrote in</span><br><span> <BWYwXjScYdFHM1NV0KEtgvazEfJM1PX7WaZ8lygZ45Bw2pEQG6JQr5OCtX-KMwEwr_k2zLD\</span><br><span> GXac7wymRCtifnU9VKnlsrJCrKFqGZSgM6-0=@protonmail.com>:</span><br><span> |The sound situation in the UNIX world to me has always felt particularly</span><br><span> |fragmentary, with OSS offering some glimmer of hope but faltering under \</span><br><span> |the long</span><br><span> |shadow of ALSA, with a hodge podge of PCM and other low level interfaces</span><br><span> |littered about other offerings.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Oh, but *how* great it was when FreeBSD came on over with those</span><br><span>"virtual sound devices", in 4.7 or 4.9 i think it was. Ie instead</span><br><span>of one blocking device, one could open dev.1 and dev.2 and it was</span><br><span>multiplexed in the kernel. It did some format conversion in the</span><br><span>kernel alongside this.</span><br><span></span><br><span>It was *fantastic*!, and i had a recording program sitting on</span><br><span>a Cyrix 166+ and it took me ~1.5 percent of (single) CPU to record</span><br><span>our then still great Hessenradio HR3 for long hours (Clubnight</span><br><span>with worldwide known DJs, Chill with great sets in the Sunday</span><br><span>mornings), and oh yes HR2 with the wonderful Mr. Paul Bartholomäi</span><br><span>in "Notenschlüssel" (classical music), and the fantastic "Voyager"</span><br><span>hour with Robert Lug on Sunday evening. It cannot be any better.</span><br><span>I could code and compile and there was no stuttering alongside.</span><br><span>1.5 percent of CPU, honestly!</span><br><span></span><br><span>I say this because FreeBSD has replaced that very code last year,</span><br><span>if i recall correctly. It now all scales dynmically, if i read</span><br><span>the patches that flew by right. (So it may be even better as of</span><br><span>now, but by then, over twenty years ago, it blew my mind. And the</span><br><span>solution was so simple, you know. The number of concurrent</span><br><span>devices was a compile time constant if i recall correctly, four by</span><br><span>default.)</span><br><span></span><br><span>I also say this because today i am lucky i can use ALSA on Linux,</span><br><span>and apulse for the firefox i have to use (and do use, too</span><br><span>.. i also browse the internet in such a monster, and at least in</span><br><span>parts still like that). I always hated those server solutions,</span><br><span>where those masses of audio data flow through several context</span><br><span>switches. What for? I never understood. Someone convinced me to</span><br><span>try that pulseaudio server, but i think it was about 20 percent of</span><br><span>CPU for a simple stream, with a terrible GUI, and that on</span><br><span>a i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz with up to 3.4 Ghz (four core; the four</span><br><span>HT are alwys disabled). 20 percent!!</span><br><span></span><br><span> ...</span><br><span> |Any recollections?[.]</span><br><span></span><br><span>Sorry, the above is totally apart, but for me the above is still</span><br><span>such a tremendous thing that someone did; and for free. Whoever</span><br><span>it was (i actually never tried to check it, now that i track their</span><br><span>git for so many years), *thank you*!</span><br><span>(And that includes the simple usual format conversions in between</span><br><span>those 22050/44100 etc etc. Just like that -- open a device and</span><br><span>read it, no thousands of callbacks, nothing. And 1.5 percent CPU.</span><br><span>Maybe it is not good/exact enough for studio level audio editing.</span><br><span>But i still have lots of those recordings, except that the "Balkan</span><br><span>piss box" chill somehow disappeared. (Sorry Pedja, shall you read</span><br><span>this.))</span><br><span></span><br><span>--steffen</span><br><span>|</span><br><span>|Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,</span><br><span>|der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one</span><br><span>|einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off</span><br><span>|(By Robert Gernhardt)</span><br><span>|</span><br><span>|In Fall and Winter, feel "The Dropbear Bard"s pint(er).</span><br><span>|</span><br><span>|The banded bear</span><br><span>|without a care,</span><br><span>|Banged on himself for e'er and e'er</span><br><span>|</span><br><span>|Farewell, dear collar bear</span><br></div></blockquote></div></body></html>