[SunRescue] Thought on SPARC MP3 player.

[James Lockwood]

On Sat, 12 May 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

>   4c machines do, 4m machines don't, except for 4/600 which has
> 4c-style audio.  4m-style audio is cd-quality stereo.

...except for the Classic, which also has 4c-style AMD7930 audio (as
opposed to the dbri/CS4215 found in the LX/SS10/SS20).

My experience is that the SS5/85 will play mp3's just fine if you compile
the player with plenty of optimization, and it's the lowest heat-output
system on your list.  With a sufficiently large heatsink of the right
design mounted to the board you might even be able to convectively cool
it.  Systems with mbus modules and Ultras kick out _much_ more heat.

Right now I'm playing an mp3 off of my garage-based SS20/50, and it's
topping out at about 20% CPU.  This is plenty of margin even though a
SS5/85 will be slower.

Consider using a single PLD instead of a UART and glue.  UART code can
easily be fitted into a tiny FPGA along with any other glue logic you
require.  There are also rather nice serial-ready LCD's available for
under $50/ea commercially, including backlighting.

You might consider booting off of a cheap Bernoulli drive or similar
instead of a hard disk.  Vibration is a big problem in hard-mounted car
parts and boot time isn't too critical as long as you can do a
suspend/restore.

-James