1/20 When you play an audio CD on a PC is the data read by the CDROM
read by the OS and sent to the soundcard or is there some kind of
special purpose hardware that directly sends data from the player
to the soundcard?
\_ yes
\_ open up your computer case and you'll see a wire leading from
the cdrom to the soundcard.
\_ it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to simply let the
OS handle it.
\_ it's not "that hard" to have the OS handle, for example,
modem services, but it's still stupid. -tom
\_ Not if you're a company selling sw/hw. :-)
\_ Mebbe you got cycles to spare, but most of planet earth
is trying to squeeze some useful productivity out of
hoggish Microsoft bloatware, and having the OS handle CD
audio may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
\_ The cdrom does the digital->audio conversion internally, and then
has an analog audio output connector (and headphone jacks if you
have a good cdrom player) That audio connector is usually hooked
up to the soundcard, which just amplifies it and sends it to your
speakers. -ERic |
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