Ah. So, were the various accelerators' CDEVs to work with the accelerators' ROMs and other things on the accelerator board?
QuickSANE
- Thread starter pocketscience
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Ah. So, were the various accelerators' CDEVs to work with the accelerators' ROMs and other things on the accelerator board?
Yup. Generic software (stock ROM, QuickSANE, etc) typically wouldn't know how to talk to it... How could it?
Ah. I am still looking for articles about QuickSANE in MacUser, MacWorld, etc. So far, no hits. Interesting, QuickSANE was for sale by a reseller as utility software in an advertisement in MacUser for about six months, then stopped.
The copy I have was in an envelope with details of the local Australian reseller, and I think even a catalogue of sorts inside. I'll dig it out to photograph for posterity as it seems it was quite short-lived for a piece of software. However I really hope people use it now. I've no interest other than being the random dude who bought a box of old Mac stuff and just happened upon it. However being a software guy at heart, I'd love to think that some of my old stuff from BITD (and maybe even stuff I do now...) will be found and at least looked at favourably by future generations. 
Unfortunately, their test seems to have consisted of only the card & SANE CP installed, without testing to see how math performance would differ with only the accelerator and NOT the CP installed.So, I looked through the magazines back in the day. In the May 1992 issue of MacUser, I found a review of the NewLife accelerator for the Mac Classic on page 71. NewLife provided a CDEV with user selectable SANE. Hmmm. Now I am hunting for more information.
But perhaps the most interesting part of that article is this...
Distorted sound plagues the Levco SuperMac SpeedCard I have (until I disable it via the Programmer's Switch trick I showed in my video). But bad sound also plagues the Sonnet Allegro 33MHz accelerator that recently was shown on Bruce's recent video, as per an old post by Byrd here. And Byrd's pics are here. I also know from @Kay K.M.Mods that the Carrera040 too has distorted sound, at least on the SE/30 (he seems to not have issues on the IIci for some reason). And yet, my 50MHz 68030 DiiMO PDS accelerator for SE/30 has no sound issues, neither does my Daystar PowerCache socketed 50MHz '030 with FPU, and neither does my 40MHz Daystar Turbo040 PDS accelerator (all for SE/30). And that is why I am hoping @Zane Kaminski can avoid the same bad sound fate with his amazing new accelerator. Most people play games on vintage Macs, and you can't play most games with bad sound. It's just a fact. Also...
Bad sound = Bad design
(in my humble opinion)
I tested the QuickSANE disk image in Basilisk II this morning (booted into 7.5.5) and found that double-clicking the IMG auto-launches SuperDuper and results in 100% CPU forever. So I rebooted Basilisk II and dragged the IMG on ShrinkWrap, and then it mounted and worked fine. Not a complaint. Just my observation. Some images are fiddly with emulators. I've copied the IMG to my FloppyEMU and will be testing it on my lunch break today.
I am wondering that without a proper patch, either at the software or hardware level, acceleration throws off the sound waves making them distorted? A spectrograph can confirm this, I think. Acceleration causes vibrations at a higher frequency, which seems to affect the sound. Hmmm. Is it distorting sound at the hardware or software level?
That's my thinking as I imagine things in 3D, at the atomic level. A wide range of frequency vibrations is not easily seen or felt by tactility unless seen at the atomic level or another detection method. The latter is easier to do.
That's my thinking as I imagine things in 3D, at the atomic level. A wide range of frequency vibrations is not easily seen or felt by tactility unless seen at the atomic level or another detection method. The latter is easier to do.
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Sound production is very timing dependant. So simply speeding up the execution of that production, without taking into account that it's being done faster results in the distortion.
(I edited my post)
Ah. Yes, I was thinking the same thing as well. I still wonder how frequency is given off, i.e., from the oscillators.
And the crystals inside the oscillators give off vibrations as it hits a specific frequency. Below is from a 16 MHz oscillator. So, that distorts sound at the software level without considering the change in processing frequency. Interesting.
The second illustration shows the various ways to produce vibrations of the crystals at specific frequencies depending on the design.
The second illustration shows the various ways to produce vibrations of the crystals at specific frequencies depending on the design.
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My lunch break is over. Here’s the result of my testing…
QuickSANE test with SpeedCard
QuickSANE test with SpeedCard
Interesting, but not surprising I guess. The fact that SpeedCard has their own SANE switch implies they're doing the same thing - and redirecting SANE calls to the SpeedCard 68881.
Your install procedure was interesting - I hadn't copied over the pref file - and so went through the first boot "please insert disk" rigmarole. They basically defeated their own copy protection by providing that prefs file!!
Your install procedure was interesting - I hadn't copied over the pref file - and so went through the first boot "please insert disk" rigmarole. They basically defeated their own copy protection by providing that prefs file!!
In early, June I posted 2 audio files here were you can hear sound with and without the distortion caused by the Levco SuperMac SpeedCard.
And here is the audio Spectrogram comparison.
So, the QuickSANE looks for the 68882, but @JDW did not have the 68882 on his SpeedCard. QuickSANE needs 68882 to have the Data Cache AND the Instruction Cache enabled to redirect mathematical operations to the FPU?
If there was, I assure you I would be using it!
In my ongoing conversations with the former member of SuperMac, he has only found a version 1.7b that fixes other issues, not the sound, but he hasn't given me that yet to try because he is awaiting the arrival of his FloppyEMU.
QuickSANE possibly.. probably looks for exact machines via the GestaltMgr - ie "am I running on a machine I know has a 68882 installed?". It wouldn't even know about the card unless QuickSANE was designed with SpeedCard in mind. And given SpeedCard has their own cdev that does the same thing then there's zero reason for QuickSANE to even care about SpeedCard.
@JDW!!! I found something for you!
In this November 1988 MacUser issue, there was a review of the SuperMac SpeedCard for the SE. Note the orange highlights about the math and other speed improvements. The green is about the sound. No mention of SuperMac being aware of correcting that. Dang!
In this November 1988 MacUser issue, there was a review of the SuperMac SpeedCard for the SE. Note the orange highlights about the math and other speed improvements. The green is about the sound. No mention of SuperMac being aware of correcting that. Dang!