Labels:text | screenshot | font | number OCR: ==== =================- AM/FM TECHCORNER The Amiga audio hardware Written by Teijo Kinnunen. On this issue's TechCorner column, I'm going to describe the capabilities of the current Amiga audio hardware, and (mostly) how to program the audio hardware. Now, let's get to the point: =====- As you already know, the sound chip of your Amiga is called 'Paula', This chip hasn't been changed since the original A1000, and is therefore identical in all current Amigas. It has been rumoured that Paula would be upgraded soon. Paula has several tasks, of which the most important is sound production. Other tasks include controlling the serial port, floppy I/O, and counting the potentiometer values of the mouse ports. The Amiga audio hardware can play only sampled sounds. So, it doesn't have e.g. built-in waveforms or ADSR circuitry, unlike (-64, for example. As you (again) know, your Amiga has four eight-bit sound channels. (A CD-player has 16-bit resolution, and professional audio equipment usually a resolution of 12-24 bits. ) Another critical measure is the Maximum sample playback rate. Normally (DMA-driven), the Amiga's maximum playback rate is about 28 kHz (28 000 samples per second), but using direct processor control, it can peak as high as 56 kHz. This is pretty
