xref: /netbsd/share/man/man4/sb.4 (revision 6550d01e)
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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).  The SoundBlaster takes 16 I/O ports.
60For the SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Pro, the IRQ and DRQ channels are
61jumper-selected.  For the SoundBlaster 16, the IRQ and DRQ channels are
62set by this driver to the values specified in the config file.  The IRQ
63must be selected from the set {5,7,9,10}.
64.Pp
65The configuration file must use 1
66.Cm flags
67specification to enable the Jazz16 support.  This is to avoid potential
68conflicts with other devices when probing the Jazz 16 because it requires
69use of extra I/O ports not in the base port range.
70.Pp
71With a SoundBlaster 16 card the device is full duplex, but it can
72only sensibly handle a precision of 8 bits.  It does so by extending
73the output 8 bit samples to 16 bits and using the 8 bit DMA channel
74for input and the 16 bit channel for output.
75.Pp
76The joystick interface (if enabled by a jumper) is handled by the
77.Xr joy 4
78driver, and the optional SCSI CD-ROM interface is handled by the
79.Xr aic 4
80driver.
81.Pp
82SoundBlaster 16 cards have MPU401 emulation and can use the mpu
83attachment, older cards have a different way to generate MIDI and
84has a midi device attached directly to the
85.Nm .
86.Sh SEE ALSO
87.Xr aic 4 ,
88.Xr audio 4 ,
89.Xr isa 4 ,
90.Xr isapnp 4 ,
91.Xr joy 4 ,
92.Xr midi 4 ,
93.Xr mpu 4 ,
94.Xr opl 4 ,
95.Xr pnpbios 4
96.Sh HISTORY
97The
98.Nm
99device driver appeared in
100.Nx 1.0 .
101.Sh BUGS
102Non-SCSI CD-ROM interfaces are not supported.
103.Pp
104The MIDI interface on the SB hardware is braindead, and the driver
105needs to busy wait while writing MIDI data.  This will consume
106a lot of system time.
107