- chuck-users - lists.cs.princeton.edu

Re: [chuck-users] Playing with fire
by Les Hall 24 Aug '09

24 Aug '09

Kas, You win the most esoteric joke of the year award for that one. Only a subset of a specific type of programmer will get the joke, and I barely do myself. Nice work, now you can move up to ziggy cartoons. :) Les

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TextMate bundle
by Thomas Friese 23 Aug '09

23 Aug '09

Hi TextMate users, the ChucK.tmbundle is now avaiable from GitHub <http://tasmo.github.com/ChucK.tmbundle/>. Collaborative workers are very welcome! The source is on <http://github.com/tasmo/ChucK.tmbundle/tree/master>. Cheers Tom

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Re: [chuck-users] spline envelopes
by Bozelos Dimitris 23 Aug '09

23 Aug '09

Hi, thanks everyone for the replies. Gen[n] and CurveTable are useful I will give them a try. If i'm not mistaken the curves generated this way pass through the intermediate points, so I was thinking of bezier curves because they pass in between the intermediate points and meet only the edges and they are smoother. Thanks for the code Mike! I looked at your technique and I have a couple of observations/questions. I guess you disconnect the envelope to save cpu when not needed. But you have the phasor in ( .op() == 0 ) - probably for the same reason - which I haven't verified it but according to the manual should still be active but giving output of 0 - so it wastes cpu, no? And shouldn't be needed to block the input since you use the multiplier's gain for it, no? I usually use the passthru status ( .op() == -1 ) which shouldn't use any cpu. I post part of my envelope class in case anybody would be interested in this way. Maybe too much for just an envelope but in long complicated code I find it really time saving to use this kind of 'secure' code: public class XEnvelope { Envelope envelope; UGen @ inputRef; UGen @ outputRef; // default status: passthru -1 => envelope.op; int isChucked; // 1 if connected both ways (left-right) int isOn; // 1 if envelope.op() == 1 int isRunning; // 1 while envelope is running 5 => int isBlocked; // if( isBlocked == 5 ) it is not blocked // otherwise it indicates the op status before blocked // connect input // if already connected, disconnect and connect the new one fun void leftChuck( UGen input ) { if( inputRef != NULL ) { leftUnchuck(); } input => envelope; input @=> inputRef; if( outputRef != NULL ) { 1 => isChucked; } } // connect to output // if already connected, disconnect and connect the new one fun void rightChuck( UGen output ) { if( outputRef != NULL ) { rightUnchuck(); } envelope => output; output @=> outputRef; if( inputRef != NULL ) { 1 => isChucked; } } // disconnect input fun void leftUnchuck() { if( inputRef != NULL ) { inputRef =< envelope; NULL @=> inputRef; 0 => isChucked; } } // disconnect output fun void rightUnchuck() { if( outputRef != NULL ) { envelope =< outputRef; NULL @=> outputRef; 0 => isChucked; } } // when blocking the envelope be careful not to change envelope.op // elsewhere. security will be enhanced in the future fun void block() { if( isBlocked == 5 ) { envelope.op() => isBlocked; 0 => envelope.op; } } fun void unblock() { if( isBlocked != 5 ) { isBlocked => envelope.op; 5 => isBlocked; } } // being OFF, turn on, run and hold // needs to be turned off in the end with 'off' fun void on( float start, float target, int milliseconds ) { if( isChucked && !isOn ) { 1 => isRunning => isOn => envelope.op; milliseconds::ms => envelope.duration; start => envelope.value; target => envelope.target; milliseconds::ms => now; 0 => isRunning; } else if( !isChucked ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope on - not connected" >>>; } else if( isOn ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope on - already on" >>>; } } // being OFF, turn on, run and hold // needs to be turned off in the end with 'off' fun void on( float start, float target, int milliseconds ) { if( isChucked && !isOn ) { 1 => isRunning => isOn => envelope.op; milliseconds::ms => envelope.duration; start => envelope.value; target => envelope.target; milliseconds::ms => now; 0 => isRunning; } else if( !isChucked ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope on - not connected" >>>; } else if( isOn ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope on - already on" >>>; } } // being ON, run to target and turn off fun void off( float target, int milliseconds ) { if( isOn && !isRunning ) { 1 => isRunning; milliseconds::ms => envelope.duration; target => envelope.target; milliseconds::ms => now; 0 => isRunning; -1 => envelope.op; 0 => isOn; } else if( !isOn ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope off - already off" >>>; } else if( isRunning ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope off - running" >>>; } } // being ON, move to next target fun void to( float target, int milliseconds ) { if( isOn && !isRunning ) { 1 => isRunning; milliseconds::ms => envelope.duration; target => envelope.target; milliseconds::ms => now; 0 => isRunning; } else if( !isOn ) { <<< "ERROR: can't move the envelope - envelope off" >>>; } else if( isRunning ) { <<< "ERROR: can't move the envelope - running" >>>; } } // being OFF, turn on, run and turn off fun void onOff( float start, float target, int milliseconds ) { if( isChucked && !isOn ) { 1 => isRunning => isOn => envelope.op; milliseconds::ms => envelope.duration; start => envelope.value; target => envelope.target; milliseconds::ms => now; -1 => envelope.op; 0 => isOn; 0 => isRunning; } else if( !isChucked ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope on/off - not connected" >>>; } else if( isOn ) { <<< "ERROR: can't turn the envelope on/off - already on" >>>; } } } ___________________________________________________________ Χρησιμοποιείτε Yahoo!; Βαρεθήκατε τα ενοχλητικά μηνύματα (spam); Το Yahoo! Mail διαθέτει την καλύτερη δυνατή προστασία κατά των ενοχλητικών μηνυμάτων http://login.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=gr

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Re: [chuck-users] The ChucK Show
by Les Hall 22 Aug '09

22 Aug '09

Also, the recordings of previous shows are available in this thread on the second and third pages: http://electro-music.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33404 Les

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The ChucK Show
by Les Hall 22 Aug '09

22 Aug '09

Last week on the ChucK show we had a great time with PLOrk and beans, and we have enough material left over for a second PLOrk and beans show which will happen next week (Plork and Beans leftovers, mmmm). This week, today in about seven hours in fact, we will have a Nord Modular show. It's mostly very mellow, relaxing stuff with some tenser moments plus some really upbeat happy music too. If you miss it there will be a recording available along with all the previous shows. Les

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Playing with fire
by Kassen 21 Aug '09

21 Aug '09

Fellow ChucKists, Yesterday I posted this to the forum and I thought people here might be amused as well. I suppose it's "code art" but working from the idea that some art can be ugly. It might also be a bit like a toddler who discovers he *can* stuff beads up his nose and doesn't stop to pause whether he *should* do so... I'm sorry, Kas. UGen top; fun UGen foo(int n) { if (n <= 0) { return dac; } else { ([new SinOsc, new TriOsc, new SawOsc, new SqrOsc])[ Std.rand2(0, 3)] @=> UGen bar; 1.0 / n => (bar $ Phasor).phase; (n%3) + 1 => (bar $ PulseOsc).sync; (75 * (n-1)) + 1 => bar.gain; (5 * n) => (bar $ Shakers).freq; if (n == 1) bar @=> top; bar => foo(n - 1); return bar; } } Step stp => Envelope e; true => stp.next; 6::second => dur loop => e.duration; while (1) { top =< dac; !(e.value() $ int ) * 10000 => e.target; e => foo(([1, 4, 7, 10, 13])[Std.rand2(0,4)]); loop => now; }

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Gary Go on iPhone
by Hans Aberg 18 Aug '09

18 Aug '09

Illustration and perhaps inspiration of some musical software on the iPhone: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid33571408001 http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/gary-go-gives/aug-09/99553 Hans

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spork question
by Bozelos Dimitris 15 Aug '09

15 Aug '09

Hello everyone, I have encountered a behaviour in my adventures with ChucK that I cannot really understand. Let's suppose the following classes: class TEnvelope { fun void TFunction( int milliseconds ) { <<< "before", now >>>; milliseconds::ms => now; <<< "after", now >>>; } } class StereoTEnvelope { TEnvelope envelopeL; TEnvelope envelopeR; fun void TFunction( int milliseconds ) { spork ~ envelopeL.TFunction( milliseconds ); envelopeR.TFunction( milliseconds ); } } class TTest { StereoTEnvelope envelope; fun void TFunction( int milliseconds ) { envelope.TFunction( milliseconds ); } } and then I do: ( TTest tTest ).TFunction( 5000 ); The function in StereoTEnvelope that I call with envelope.TFunction proceeds as expected printing 'now' both before and after advancing time. But the function that I spork prints only before and then quits. ????? Dimitris ___________________________________________________________ Χρησιμοποιείτε Yahoo!; Βαρεθήκατε τα ενοχλητικά μηνύματα (spam); Το Yahoo! Mail διαθέτει την καλύτερη δυνατή προστασία κατά των ενοχλητικών μηνυμάτων http://login.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=gr

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play and record stereo with WvIn and WvOut
by michael breitenbach 15 Aug '09

15 Aug '09

hi, how ist it possible to play or record in stereo(or more channels)-aiff? who can help? micha

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Re: [chuck-users] chuck and jack
by Bozelos Dimitris 14 Aug '09

14 Aug '09

Hi Cody, thanks, I'll try this, I will still look for a solution for the interface problem but this might help with xruns. Dimitris >you might try configuring JACK differently. I also use linux >(although I have yet to get chuck-jack to compile correctly) and have >found that JACK can be rather finnicky about the settings you use. If >you are not, I would suggest using Qjackctl to configure all of the >options. It allows much easier control of all the different settings >that simply using the command line. There are several tutorials >around for minimising xruns . ___________________________________________________________ Χρησιμοποιείτε Yahoo!; Βαρεθήκατε τα ενοχλητικά μηνύματα (spam); Το Yahoo! Mail διαθέτει την καλύτερη δυνατή προστασία κατά των ενοχλητικών μηνυμάτων http://login.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=gr

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spline envelopes
by Bozelos Dimitris 12 Aug '09

12 Aug '09

Hello, has anybody implemented in ChucK or elsewhere else envelopes with the use of bezier or other spline curves? Linear is can be boring sometimes! Any efficient algorithm? I was thinking of trying De Casteljau algorithm but I would like to hear from anybody else that has already done something similar. Cheers, Dimitris ___________________________________________________________ Χρησιμοποιείτε Yahoo!; Βαρεθήκατε τα ενοχλητικά μηνύματα (spam); Το Yahoo! Mail διαθέτει την καλύτερη δυνατή προστασία κατά των ενοχλητικών μηνυμάτων http://login.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=gr

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back on the net and a concert
by Bozelos Dimitris 12 Aug '09

12 Aug '09

Hello everyone, after loooooong time I have at last internet connection in my flat, so you will probably hear from me more next weeks. There is a concert on the 27th of August in the University Of Edinburgh and I will perform using a mix of ChucK, SuperCollider and Common Lisp, with all sound synthesis in ChucK. I can post the details next days if anybody will be around at the time. Dimitris ___________________________________________________________ Χρησιμοποιείτε Yahoo!; Βαρεθήκατε τα ενοχλητικά μηνύματα (spam); Το Yahoo! Mail διαθέτει την καλύτερη δυνατή προστασία κατά των ενοχλητικών μηνυμάτων http://login.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=gr

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Re: [chuck-users] The ChucK Show
by Les Hall 11 Aug '09

11 Aug '09

Thank you Dan for the PLORK site! There is more than enough material there to do an entire show, so woohoo - the ChucK show is back in business for at least another week. The only glitch was that the piece titled "Bells and Whistles" by Michael Early showed the previous peice's filename when I <ctrl>-clicked on it to save file to disk on my eMac. It showed the "Ganzfield in Orange and Black" by Matmos filename. So I suspect that there is a link to fix. No big deal though. Thanks again! Les

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The ChucK Show
by Les Hall 11 Aug '09

11 Aug '09

Hi all, The ChucK Show has been on vacation for the past two weeks. I had a cold and was exhausted two weeks ago, and last week we did a Lunetta show in place of the ChucK show. It seems there hasn't been all that much activity on the ChucK frontier the past couple of months, so I've decided to do some special topics shows featuring other aspects of the electro-music.com forum. I am currently collecting material for a Nord Modular show, and I'll mix that in with some ChucK shows, an occasional Lunetta show, and maybe something else like a Modular Synthesizer show. Fear not, the ChucK show will return just as soon as I get some new material. Thanks to everyone who has made contributions to the show. For recordings of any of the shows on electro-music.com radio, please see the following forum page: http://electro-music.com/forum/index.php?f=174 take care, Les

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Some Summer Tidbits
by mike clemow 06 Aug '09

06 Aug '09

Dear Chuckists, With the exception of a protracted discussion about garbage collection (of which I have yet to read the conclusion), things have been generally "all quiet on the ChucKian front" this summer. Nevertheless, I know that there are those of you who are still busy digging into this and that project with ChucK. I myself have been working (predictably, doggedly, stubbornly) on more granular synthesis stuff and wanted to share some recent classes that I find helpful to me in general (i.e. not just for granular synthesis). Part 1: INPUT I find that environments like Processing, SC, etc have very easy-to-use input calls like MouseX.kr etc, that easily bring the ability to add some interaction to your code, without having to set up a HidMsg, Hid pair and an event responder. Sometimes you just want mouse input and want it right now. I wanted to automate the process a little so that I could save some time by just telling ChucK to add the boiler plate listener for the mouse, keyboard, or a joystick in a separate thread and make the data available. With the MouseInput class, for instance, you can just do this: MouseInput mi; spork ~ mi.listen(); me.yield(); while(true) { mi => now; <<< mi.deltaX, mi.deltaY, mi.wheelDeltaX, mi.wheelDeltaY, mi.buttonDown, mi.buttonUp >>>; me.yield(); } I find this easier to use. Maybe you will too. There's one for Keyboard input and joystick input too. I'm sure they can be improved, so please share any ideas you have. Part 2: WAVETABLES AS ENVELOPES Concept: A positive, unipolar wavetable can be used as a cheap, flexible alternative to envelope UGens by driving it with a Phasor and multiplying its output with your signal. The CurveEnvelope class: // // CurveTable Envelope // class CurveEnvelope { // members and default params Phasor drive => CurveTable curvetable => Gain multiplier; 3 => multiplier.op; // this is what makes the CurveTable an envelope! 0. => multiplier.gain; // we use this to gait the output, so start at 0. UGen source, out; 0 => drive.op; // stop the driver for now dac @=> out; 1. => float gain; 1::second => dur length; [0., 0., 0., 1., 1., 0., 2., 0.] => curvetable.coefs; // triangle window // methods fun void setEnvelopeCoefs( float _coefs[] ) { _coefs => curvetable.coefs; } fun void connectSource( UGen src ) { src @=> source; } fun void connectOutput( UGen destination ) { destination @=> out; } fun void trigger() { source => multiplier => out; // connect things gain => multiplier.gain; // open gait 1 => drive.op; 0. => drive.phase; // reset driver to beginning of envelope curve 1. / (length / second) => drive.freq; // calculate speed of driver in Hz length => now; // let it happen... 0. => multiplier.gain; // close gait 0 => drive.op; source =< multiplier =< out; // disconnect things } } USAGE: CurveEnvelope ce; SinOsc s; ce.connectSource( s ); ce.connectOutput( dac ); ce.trigger(); TriOsc t; ce.connectSource( t ); ce.connectOutput( dac ); ce.trigger(); <<< "done" >>>; -- http://michaelclemow.com http://semiotech.org

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Google Wave ChucK robot
by Erik Schoster 02 Aug '09

02 Aug '09

Hi All - After watching the Google Wave preview video at wave.google.com, I had an idea for a ChucK-related robot built within the Wave context that I'm pretty excited about. Here's the idea: If you aren't familiar with Wave, it provides all sorts of amazing collaborative editing functionality. Additionally, Wave supports extension building through a few APIs. There are Java and Python libraries available. I'd love to build a robot along with anyone who would like to help (I'm primarily a PHP developer, so I'd love love love help from any Java or Python wizards out there!) that would publish collaboratively developed ChucK scripts to a central server. Step two - and this is the really exciting part, I think - would be utilizing the robot in such a way as to actually run these pieces on the server, and stream them back to the user in realtime through wave. I'm shooting from the hip here, but I thought I would put the idea out there and see if anyone else would be interested in helping to develop it with me. Think this would be useful? Are there limitations to ChucK i'm not aware of that would make this impossible? Think this is a dumb idea and you've got a way better one? Lets discuss! I applied for an account on Google's wave developer sandbox a moment ago, but even if we have to wait a couple months until wave goes public, I think this would be really fun to try to implement. Thanks! Erik

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browser-controlled circular synth
by Andrew Turley 30 Jul '09

30 Jul '09

I thought you guys might be interested in this. I put together a little demo of a circular sequencer that is controlled through a web browser. I use Chuck for some (most) of the back end. Here's a link to the blog post which includes video and code: http://www.pillowsopher.com/blog/?p=107 andy

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Re: [chuck-users] MAUI Window Shooting Game
by Les Hall 26 Jul '09

26 Jul '09

mike - glad you enjoyed it, 13 is pretty good, I usually get to 13 myself. Tom - 19? dang, you must have the reflexes of a teenager! Yes, the minimum button size is one pixel. Kas - being a music novice, I don't know what polyphony is. I just modified your code until it made a one-shot. The only thing is, it doesn't quit for some reason - once you fire your first shot you get sound for the rest of the game. That's a good thing for the game because it keeps the tension level up, but I don't understand why it does that. All - I would like to add more to the game like some Space Invaders marching noises or some Nintendo music, or perhaps a time-based score factor, but what the hey, it's done and it's fun. I wonder how else we can muck with MAUI for entertainment purposes? Les

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Re: [chuck-users] GC vs real-time (was Getting Started with ChucK)
by Hans Aberg 25 Jul '09

25 Jul '09

On 24 Jul 2009, at 23:53, Stefan Blixt wrote: > I don't follow all the theory and reasoning here, so I don't know if > you're suggesting something different, but I constantly make use of > the exact timing in stuff like this: > > fun void shred1() { > while (true) { > // Play note > 50::ms => now; > } > } > > fun void shred2() { > while (true) { > // Play note > 50::ms => now; > } > } > > spork ~ shred1(); > spork ~ shred2(); > > With the timing model in ChucK I can depend on these to run in sync > forever, and when one note is initiated the other has either been > initated just before or just after. The discussion was about how to change the timing in more fine-grains below what Chuck does. So in your example, in "Play note", you want the notes to be initiated at the exact same time. But do you need the notes to play exactly in phase, say? This would be important if you want to combine different shreds into a single sound generator, say in left and right channels. But suppose you have built your sound generator, and combined them in different music lines, or as several strings in the same note as in a piano. Then the timing of the notes on should still be exact, but not of the individual generators. So the "Play note" can "out-source" the playing of the sound of the note :-). > I don't know how SuperCollider and CSound and others work, but I > feel that with another timing module based on threads, these beats > would start to drift apart in a manner that would be noticeable > fairly quickly (minutes or tens of minutes). Also, I can speed up > sequences into audible range and back again in a reliable manner. I > don't need to kludge with some synchronizing event or stuff like > that. I wouldn't want this feature to be broken. It is a good point that Chuck syncs forever, even if there is a long concert. Here is a program with a different approach http://impromptu.moso.com.au/tutorials/time.html It is a good question what happens with that model in long sessions. Perhaps there results unwanted phasing. Hans

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Re: [chuck-users] Getting Started with ChucK
by Hans Aberg 24 Jul '09

24 Jul '09

On 21 Jul 2009, at 20:30, Tom Lieber wrote: > 2009/7/21 Hans Aberg <haberg(a)math.su.se>: >> So it might be better to tweak some existing functional language into >> accepting Chuck's timing concepts. > > Want to help with ruck? :D > > http://github.com/alltom/ruck/tree/master > > It all works and has nice sugar like chucking arrays of objects and > lambda properties, but it's too slow for real-time at reasonable > sample rates. I haven't sat down to do the porting to C I think it > needs to perform well, even though I think it shows promise. I looked at Ruby, and didn't like some aspects of it, though I do not remember what it was :-). But there is a problems with the GC. The Wikipedia page did not specify. Pretty much the only GC that can fulfill the requirements of exact timing without jumps and concurrency is reference counting. Experts will ensure that this need not be so, but also admit that it is hard to achieve in practice. So I think Chuck, if extended with lambda calculus might try adding it on top what already exists, and then just use reference counting for GC. Hans

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Getting Started with ChucK
by Greg Sabo 22 Jul '09

22 Jul '09

Hello, I've been interested in trying ChucK for several years now but I've just recently started playing with it in earnest. I like what I see so far :) I have one thing that's bothering me - coming from SuperCollider, I'm used to being able to put UGens in pretty much any argument, like this: {a = SinOsc.kr(freq: 20, mul: 300); SinOsc.ar(freq: a, mul: 0.8)}.play If I wanted basic FM. So intuitively, trying out ChucK for the first time, I tried to do: SinOsc mod => SinOsc car.freq => dac; Which didn't work. After a bit of reading, I understand that UGens have "inputs" in ChucK, by default set to modify the frequency, and if you want to modulate a different parameter, you change that object's sync attribute. That seems kind of weird/unintuitive to me, is there something that I'm missing that went into making the syntax like this? Besides that, I find ChucK really fun to play with, and I look forward to making some zany sounds with it :) -Greg Sabo

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odd hid issue (touchpad)
by Kassen 19 Jul '09

19 Jul '09

Dear list, Last night I found a bit of a odd issue with a touchpad on a laptop running Linux. I tried to open the mouse as a HID device and it correctly found the one mouse attached, being the build in touchpad which it described as acting through ps2 (I believe that's normal for touchpads). The odd thing is that ChucK didn't get any data from it when moving my finger over it or clicking the buttons. I then pluged in a Logitech optical mouse which was -after a restart of the vm for safety- identified as mouse 0 and which did operate correctly. I'd be happy to run any and all tests that might help diagnose the bug if it's deemed one. I should note that this was running a non-standard version of the Mini, being one with the latest ChucK plugged in and Tom's CNoise fix on top of that but I don't think either should affect this. Yours, Kas.

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Re: [chuck-users] odd hid issue (touchpad)
by Hans Aberg 19 Jul '09

19 Jul '09

On 18 Jul 2009, at 22:08, Kassen wrote: >> That is an interesting use. If one does not have a turntable to >> scratch, I checked one can use the top of a matte CD or DVD - I >> only tried without print, and the underside (that carries the data) >> didn't work. So that might serve as an interface to scratch some >> audio-file > > Yes, it's a very interesting way to create a expressive interface > with little cost or fuzz. I've seen videos online of people simply > sticking a optical mouse into a pizza box they had cut up. My friend > Rob Bothof went a bit further than that; > http://forum.itchymuzik.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=53 > (some docs and a example video) > > I simply hooked that up to LiSa and had it control the .rate() while > continuously recording. This simple setup was already a lot of fun, > far better than the toy turntable for Playstation that I've been > using. The experience is very tactile and intuitive. He says he has problems with recording constant turn velocity. There is no information about the surface the mouse reads off - if that is uneven, that may cause problems. For recording turns, one should use a Hall sensor, like this one: http://www.globalspec.com/FeaturedProducts/Detail/BEIDuncanElectronics/9360… This is inexpensive though not USB, but netsearching for words like "USB rotary joystick Hall effect controller" may produce some results. >> These are called "extended keyboards", or full size, at least on >> the Mac side >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard >> I have an old Mac one, where the function keys are without gaps and >> no space the other keys. This was very good for the diatonic key >> map, as it becomes enlarged. But I found it difficult to do >> ornaments on it: the keys are a bit too chevy. It is A1048 here: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Keyboard#Apple_Keyboard >> I have for couple of months used the A1242 - it is much better on >> ornaments, but not as good as a musical instrument. The rather >> short action takes some time to get used to. > > Yes, I see. Personally I don't care that much about ornaments ... They are important in melodic development to provide character and style. > ...but I do care about the tactile feel which is where I feel the > Model M really shines. Of course there are also many who detest it > for the weight, the noise, the size and the heavy feel. This is pretty much and individual preference - some like heavy weighted keys, and even think it helps playing faster, others the reverse. All typing keyboards seem to have an unpredictable depressing point which makes them less suitable for music interpretation. >>> To me these seem like under-appreciated factors. If we are going >>> to use devices like these for music then tactile feel matters for >>> expressiveness and it will pay off to find one that suits our >>> tastes. >>> >> There was a adding cards to the computer also on the Mac, but they >> are mostly gone now, because the CPU/GPU are so powerful, it is not >> needed. > > I meant that some people may want to add exotic devices, like > hookups to cash registers or industrial machines or sensor arrays or > vending machines or.... It seems to me that some drivers, some of > the time, will be unavoidable. Take for instance video editing; that > require a rather largge video card with many in and outputs. We can > hardly make vendors of such devices wait for a new OS update before > shiping a new model. Video cards seem a exception in general, Ati > and Nvidea like their strange drivers to access their own features > so well they even made Linux ones Aside from that this would give a > bit too much power to OS makers for my tastes. These are the GPUs I mentioned. Mac OS X is developing special language support for these. So the exact driver thing will be transparent. Learning a new way to program fro every device requires too much of an effort. So this is probably the trend for the future. >> One reason to avoid custom supplied drivers is that they do low >> level things that may cause the computer to crash. On Macs, that is >> called "kernel panic". Basically, it means that the kernel running >> the processes gets some code that it cannot handle. Often, there is >> a driver for a piece of hardware involved. The hardware, the OS and >> the computer, though, are fine. > > Yes, I agree. On Windows I already took to ignoring most driver > discs and having the more stable default ones sort it out. On Linux > the default ones are often all we have and I have to say they work > very well. Without aiming to get too political; I don't think the > issue is with users installing their own drivers, I feel the issue > is with vendors that create buggy ones, often without good reason > because the standard ones do the exact same thing. I've seen that > many times with joypads and joypad adapters. That need not be a > matter of platform, I have little doubt that a exotic device in need > of special drivers could bring OSX or Linux to it's knees as well if > it had a bad driver. On the Mac, I noticed that the printer drivers now all seem very small, except for HP, which was huge, like 1 GB. Hans

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Ruben's tube
by Hans Aberg 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

A fiery musical experiment: http://www.youtube.com/user/twinrawk Perhaps something for Chuck live performances. :-) Hans

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Fwd: odd hid issue (touchpad)
by Kassen 17 Jul '09

17 Jul '09

Sorry, I accidentally send this to just Hans, it should of course have gone to the list. Hi, Hans! The general interface just provides a list of (device_type, button_number, > button_range, button_intended_use) or something (don't remember details). > Chuck implements some of those choices, hardcoded with respect to > (device_type, button_intended_use). > Indeed, ChucK takes the most common and universal ones. It's not perfect but as a simplified interface it's quite pleasant to work with and mostly gets most of the job done. >> [chuck](VM): sporking incoming shred: 1 (mouse.ck)... >> mouse 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' ready >> > > So this means that the touchpad has been registered as type mouse. > Yes, indeed. Frankly I think that so far it's a clear cut case. I feel it's a mouse, my windows manager (Gnome) agrees it's a mouse and ChucK accepts it as one yet there is no data coming in or being printed from mouse.ck. You do have a valid point about the difference in scanning between a regular mouse and a pad but at least the buttons should be buttons in any case yet I'm not seeing buttonpresses. This is why I suspect something is wrong. I do believe touchpads also output the change in position. >> > > They may or may not, I think - they HIDs can pretty much choose what > varibles they want to provide. There was another thread withy this track-pad > problem. > Yeah.... but this is not some exotic specialised device. I would think it's quite clear that a touchpad on a laptop will be used as a mouse. > > If you have a Mac with gcc on it, you might try the program I hacked up. It > lists all the variables for all attached HIDs. > No, sorry, I do have some Linux computers with GCC on them. Yours, Kas.

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