Re: tlug: Yamaha OPL3-SA3

[Christopher Sekiya <wileyc@example.com>]

On Thu, 5 Mar 1998, Domenico Carlucci wrote:

> I hadn't time to try. Anyway, I'm little bit confused.
> I read at http://www.4front-tech.com/usslite that it is 
> a Pnp device and it shoudl work as MSS. It doesn't!

Nope, what we have here is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a sound
card is composed.

A sound card consists of two logical devices: the (for lack of a better
term, it's been a long day) D/A converter (/dev/audio and/or /dev/dsp in
Unices) and the synthesizer (/dev/sequencer and/or /dev/midi in Unices). 
The former handles things such as digitized speech and sound effects.  The
latter handles "music" -- MIDI files and such. 

The chip handling /dev/audio is nowadays usually a ESS/MSS-type chip
(OTI-601, ESS-1868, and such).  The chip handling /dev/sequencer is
usually an OPL variant (OPL-3 mostly, OPL-4 for the higher-end stuff) (has
anyone seen a non-Yamaha OPL, BTW?).

So you've figured out half of your sound card chipset.  Look at the card
for another big chip.  That's probably the one you're trying to identify.
Once you've got it, read the drivers/sound/README.CARDS file in the linux
kernel source tree and see which option you need to select.

> Christopher Sekiya says that it's not a pnp devise!

I could be wrong.  I've never personally seen a PnP-set synth.

--	Chris (wileyc@example.com)

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