xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man4/sb.4 (revision 25b8d95356276fc07da91b4a5e53b7aba60fc0d0)
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30.Dd June 22, 2005
31.Dt SB 4
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm sb
35.Nd SoundBlaster family (and compatible) audio device driver
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Cd "sb0    at isa? port 0x220 irq 5 drq 1 drq2 5"
38.Cd "sb1    at isa? port 0x240 irq 7 drq 1 flags 1"
39.Cd "sb*    at isapnp?"
40.Cd "sb*    at pnpbios? index ?"
41.Cd "audio* at audiobus?"
42.Cd "midi*  at sb?"
43.Cd "mpu*   at sb?"
44.Cd "opl*   at sb?"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Nm
48driver provides support for the SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro,
49SoundBlaster 16, Jazz 16, SoundBlaster AWE 32, SoundBlaster AWE 64,
50and hardware register-level compatible audio cards.
51.Pp
52The SoundBlaster series are half-duplex cards, capable of 8- and 16-bit
53audio sample recording and playback at rates up to 44.1kHz (depending on
54the particular model).
55.Pp
56The base I/O port address is usually jumper-selected to either 0x220 or
570x240 (newer cards may provide software configuration, but this driver
58does not directly support them--you must configure the card for its I/O
59addresses with other software).
60The SoundBlaster takes 16 I/O ports.
61For the SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Pro, the IRQ and DRQ channels are
62jumper-selected.
63For the SoundBlaster 16, the IRQ and DRQ channels are
64set by this driver to the values specified in the config file.
65The IRQ must be selected from the set {5,7,9,10}.
66.Pp
67The configuration file must use 1
68.Cm flags
69specification to enable the Jazz16 support.
70This is to avoid potential conflicts with other devices when probing
71the Jazz 16 because it requires use of extra I/O ports not in the
72base port range.
73.Pp
74With a SoundBlaster 16 card the device is full duplex, but it can
75only sensibly handle a precision of 8 bits.
76It does so by extending
77the output 8 bit samples to 16 bits and using the 8 bit DMA channel
78for input and the 16 bit channel for output.
79.Pp
80The joystick interface (if enabled by a jumper) is handled by the
81.Xr joy 4
82driver, and the optional SCSI CD-ROM interface is handled by the
83.Xr aic 4
84driver.
85.Pp
86SoundBlaster 16 cards have MPU401 emulation and can use the mpu
87attachment, older cards have a different way to generate MIDI and
88has a midi device attached directly to the
89.Nm .
90.Sh SEE ALSO
91.Xr aic 4 ,
92.Xr audio 4 ,
93.Xr i386/pnpbios 4 ,
94.Xr isa 4 ,
95.Xr isapnp 4 ,
96.Xr joy 4 ,
97.Xr midi 4 ,
98.Xr mpu 4 ,
99.Xr opl 4
100.Sh HISTORY
101The
102.Nm
103device driver appeared in
104.Nx 1.0 .
105.Sh BUGS
106Non-SCSI CD-ROM interfaces are not supported.
107.Pp
108The MIDI interface on the SB hardware is braindead, and the driver
109needs to busy wait while writing MIDI data.
110This will consume a lot of system time.
111