Hercules Game Theater - cs4630

Hercules Game Theater - cs4630

[Benny Sjostrand]

  My first thought was that it would be a easy match to make the
Hercules Game Theater XP sound card work on Linux. My goal is to make
the SPDIF IN-OUT interface work, and the multichannel PCM improving the
current alsa cs46xx driver, and then go on with other advanced codec
stuffs (hopefully finish before i die ...)
Now a couple of days browsing the alsa source code and reading a lot
of borring HW datasheet of must all Cirrus CS4xxx chips it just dont
feel possible to find any easy solution.
In the Cirrus collection of manuals and datasheet i have found a lot
HW specifications and reference design documents for the CS4630 chip,
and the codecs CS4694, CS4697 and so on. But what about the programmers
guide, does it not exist any open document like "CS4630 Programmers
Manual", or something similar, where it explain how to program the DSP
?? or is that not public ???
Then i've sent mail to Cirrus and Hercules, of course without any
response (yet) ....

I supose that people from the alsa-group has alreayd gone throw
those issues, please maybe if you help me, where i find related
documents about the CS430 chip, that can provide me necesary information
to go on with the ALSA-driver.

Thanks!

/Benny





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Re: Hercules Game Theater - cs4630

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 03 Jul 2002 23:06:39 +0200,
Benny Sjostrand wrote:
> 
>   My first thought was that it would be a easy match to make the
> Hercules Game Theater XP sound card work on Linux. My goal is to make
> the SPDIF IN-OUT interface work, and the multichannel PCM improving the
> current alsa cs46xx driver, and then go on with other advanced codec
> stuffs (hopefully finish before i die ...)
> Now a couple of days browsing the alsa source code and reading a lot
> of borring HW datasheet of must all Cirrus CS4xxx chips it just dont
> feel possible to find any easy solution.
> In the Cirrus collection of manuals and datasheet i have found a lot
> HW specifications and reference design documents for the CS4630 chip,
> and the codecs CS4694, CS4697 and so on. But what about the programmers
> guide, does it not exist any open document like "CS4630 Programmers
> Manual", or something similar, where it explain how to program the DSP
> ?? or is that not public ???

no.

> Then i've sent mail to Cirrus and Hercules, of course without any
> response (yet) ....
 
i've been asking to cirrus logic many times, but no responce, too.
apparently cirruslogic has no interest in this chip at all, since
they stopped producing this chip.


Takashi


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Re: Hercules Game Theater - cs4630

[Benny Sjostrand]

Finally a answer from someone, however it does not make me happier -;) ....

>>and the codecs CS4694, CS4697 and so on. But what about the programmers
>>guide, does it not exist any open document like "CS4630 Programmers
>>Manual", or something similar, where it explain how to program the DSP
>>?? or is that not public ???
>>
>
>no.
>
... the same history repeats again, what do they win keeping thoose 
f*ck*ing spec.
closed ....

>>Then i've sent mail to Cirrus and Hercules, of course without any
>>response (yet) ....
>>
> 
>i've been asking to cirrus logic many times, but no responce, too.
>apparently cirruslogic has no interest in this chip at all, since
>they stopped producing this chip.
>
The cs4630 chip is still in list of Cirrus available products.

Maybe it's meaningless to continue with this, but i'm a very obstinate 
persson and have not
given up yet.
I suspect that the specifications we need for the cs4630 are chipped 
ordering the
reference board manufacturing kit (CMK4630-10) plus a lot of OrCAD PCB 
stuff .
I believe that the Game Theater XP card is probably 99% based on the 
CMK4630 reference
design + "a breakout box".
Then i've been trying to contact Cirrus to get some price information about
the CMK4630-10 manufacturing kit and try to know what's included and maybe
order one (if it's not too expensive), but Cirrus just sucks and have 
not given me any
response yet. Then today i tried to call directly to a Cirrus 
distributor where people
was gone on vacations and gone for weekend, so things just sucks!

/Benny



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Re: Hercules Game Theater - cs4630

[Jaroslav Kysela]

On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, Benny Sjostrand wrote:

>   My first thought was that it would be a easy match to make the
> Hercules Game Theater XP sound card work on Linux. My goal is to make
> the SPDIF IN-OUT interface work, and the multichannel PCM improving the
> current alsa cs46xx driver, and then go on with other advanced codec
> stuffs (hopefully finish before i die ...)
> Now a couple of days browsing the alsa source code and reading a lot
> of borring HW datasheet of must all Cirrus CS4xxx chips it just dont
> feel possible to find any easy solution.
> In the Cirrus collection of manuals and datasheet i have found a lot
> HW specifications and reference design documents for the CS4630 chip,
> and the codecs CS4694, CS4697 and so on. But what about the programmers
> guide, does it not exist any open document like "CS4630 Programmers
> Manual", or something similar, where it explain how to program the DSP
> ?? or is that not public ???
> Then i've sent mail to Cirrus and Hercules, of course without any
> response (yet) ....
> 
> I supose that people from the alsa-group has alreayd gone throw
> those issues, please maybe if you help me, where i find related
> documents about the CS430 chip, that can provide me necesary information
> to go on with the ALSA-driver.

I recommend to forget to do something with this chip. The company is not 
willing officially to co-operate to give us full specification for this 
hardware.

						Jaroslav

-----
Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project  http://www.alsa-project.org
SuSE Linux    http://www.suse.com



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