boot options

[sunnyboy010101]

I'm trying to fix my audio difficulties. I can't turn audio on because <ctrl>-F1 does not work on GUI app on my PiDP-1 and I'm not using the web app.

However, looking at the manual about the web app, there are two checkboxes. One is to turn audio on or off, the second is to turn multiply/division on or off.

I was not able to get far enough into the web app and what it actually calls to turn on the audio if you click the checkbox (or what exactly pressing <ctrl>F1 does on the gui) but looking at the various boot configurations in /opt/pidp1/bootcfg I saw that many of them have a first line "muldiv on".

So I am wondering (asking) - is there a similar "audio on" setting for boot .cfg files that would turn audio on when using the sense switches when booting? I was thinking of creating a boot option to pre-load the music tape with audio on.

Otherwise, can someone tell me what program or other is actually run to turn on the audio either when the checkbox for audio is selected in the web interface or when <ctrl>F1 is pressed on the GUI? (again, that key press does not work for me).

Thanks,

-R

[sunnyboy010101]

AUDIO SOLVED!!!

I copied one of the config files to 77.cfg and edited it. First I added the line "audio on" (mimicing the line "muldiv on" and then loaded the music tape pdp1m13.rim 

I stopped the simulator, then restarted with sense switches to octal 77 and restarted. It came up with the music tape loaded, so I read it in. Then following the music guidelines, loaded a music tape, set the sense switch (1) and memory switch (0004) and clicked start 3 times to compile the 3 voices on the music tape. That all worked as before, but THIS TIME, the audio was functional from the start and WORKED.

I did start by using the USB audio dongle, but when it was playing I was able to switch to HDMI sound (much better!) and that worked as well.

So - if the <ctrl>F1 does not work, then you can get around that by creating a sound .cfg file using "not currently used" sense switch patterns. The "audio on" line will turn the audio system on and there you go!

-R

[Bill E]

Exellent, congratulations! Now you just need to use my audio-modded version, it sounds much more like the real -1 because it simulates the low pass filtering the real one does. :)

Bill

[sunnyboy010101]

Thanks! I'll look into that. 

For anyone else, here's the config script (added here as both text and as .cfg file)...

file: /opt/pidp1/bootcfg/77.cfg

muldiv on
audio on
r PDP1_DIR/tapes/old/pdp1m13.rim

File also added as attachment. 

-R

[Charles Ess]

Thanks much for this - it was a helpful start towards solving a similar problem with my build. Based on various pokes and prods suggested by a couple of AIs via a terminal or two, this helped make progress – but not enough to make the music play. It turned into 2+ hours of a lot of hit-and-miss, with both a couple of AI "assistants" sometimes helpful, and sometimes guessing even more wildly than I.
It turned out that I needed to set the profile quite precisely for the USB dongle which feeds the music output to the amplifier and speakers with the 3.5mm AUX jack wired to the amplifier. I switched dongles at one point just to make sure that the supplied dongle wasn’t some how flaky: it flashes red when working – at first I thought this was a danger signal, not an indication that it’s doing the best it can.
Once you know where to look, getting to the profiles for the USB dongle via the GUI is straightforward: a right-click on the sound icon in the upper top right of the Raspberry menu bar opens up three options – HDMI, USB Audio Device (the name with my substitute dongle), and Device Profiles. There are several options for the USB Audio Device: the AI recommended “Analog Stereo Output + Mono Input” – in slavish recognition that the dongle has jacks for both a microphone input and headphone output. This only resulted in more static, however – perhaps because with only one jack inserted in the dongle (headphones – though the supplied dongle shows a mouse icon, also a bit confusing), this profile doesn’t perfectly match?
In any case, after switching to Analog Stereo Output all by itself did the trick.
One more tidbit for revising the documentation, especially for those of us relatively new to these domains.

Again, many thanks for the helpful script and notes.