Re: Names of things

[Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>]

At Wed, 8 Oct 2003 00:07:57 -0700 (PDT),
Tom Watson wrote:
> 
> A message a while ago mentioned the difficulty in the "proper" names
> for things.  While the terms "left" and "right" have been around for a
> while, other terms are new to the show.  For instance "master" and
> "headphone" mean weird things.

yes, "headphone" is used often in a wrong way.
this control appears usually on ac97 chips.  and the recent ac97 chips
provide the former headphone output as the "true line-out" pin for the
consumer device.  hence, nowdays, most implementation uses headphone
output as the real line-out instead of the old line-out pin.

OTOH, "headphone" in emu10k1 driver refers really to a headphone
jack, for example.

>   In an effort to make things "easier", I
> would like to suggest:
> 
> "Front" and "Back".  While "Front" is very obvious, "Back" may not be
> intuitive (others preferring "Rear").  The problem is that many people
> abbreviate channels by their initials, and "R" is already taken
> ("Right"), so "Back" is a better choice.  Besides, when 4-channel
> stereo was being discussed/standardized back in the 70's, they made
> that choice.

so far, "Surround" (or "Rear") is used for that.
it it too amgibuous?

> I also support the decision to make "Master" refer to a common control
> for many levels (more than 2 channels).
 
well, my understanding of "master" is that it's a controll for all
over other controls.  i.e. if you change "master", all outputs should
be affected.


Takashi


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