a couple of ideas crossed my mind...

1) why not just boost the transmitter power? the FCC decided last friday to
end its decades long obstinate opposition of 'micro-radio'. i don't know the
exact details, but output could go as high as 1000 Watts. (source, page B8
Wall Street Journal, Friday 1/29)
2) how about building a streaming audio server? a RealAudio streamer would
be best (their player should be available on virtually all platforms), but i
am fairly certain that the RealAudio format is proprietary. but you could
still do the MIDI-to-Digital Audio conversion on the server. then if squeak
could send and receive UDP packets, you could blast the stuff out. ask the
signal guys over in Van Leer to whip out some audio compression and voilá!
you could put Real Audio out of business over night.

whatever you do, please keep us posted. this project sounds *very* cool.

dave


At 10:01 AM 2/2/99 -0500, you wrote:
>At 2:38 PM -0800 2/1/99, Stephen Travis Pope wrote:
>>> The Mac has such a software MIDI synthesizer built-in, available through
>>> QuickTime.  Is it possible to be able to access it the same way that
>>> Windows Squeakers can access their software synthesizer?
>>
>>The OMS MIDI libraries support the QuickTime MIDI instruments as another
>>output, and
>>can play from Squeak through the Siren primitives quite well.
>
>And it's really fabulous quality!  But it's not as cross-platform as we'd
>like for our purposes.
>
>Our application is a cooperative radio station.  Currently, we have a Swiki
>on which users can upload WAV, AIF, or MIDI files and can edit a PlayList.
>We have a JukeBox process reading the playlist and playing the files
>through Mac audio and an external MIDI synthesizer.  The output of the Mac
>audio and the external MIDI synthesizer is piped into an FM Transmitter.
>This gives us a cooperative radio.
>
>While the FM Transmitter is the maximum power allowed without an FCC
>License (under Section 15 rules), it's still pretty low-powered.  Because
>of machine rooms, fire walls, and the like, we can't reach most of our
>College building.  We've built an AM Transmitter (and I have the soldering
>iron burns to prove it :-), but it's really hard to get as clear a signal
>with AM.
>
>So, now we're exploring putting the JukeBox process on each users' desk.
>Aibek Musaev is building a Squeak JukeBox that reads the playlists and all
>files off the Web, and does the MIDI synthesis from Squeak. Cross-platform
>is a "must" here -- we run the whole range in this building.  But we'd like
>to get higher quality than the current Squeak MIDI Synthesizer.
>
>Maybe we could use Siren for Macs, base Squeak for Windows using the
>Soundblaster/Yamaha synthesizers, and base Squeak for UNIX with sound
>patches like Lex's for Linux.  But it would be easier for us if we could
>just write for Squeak (or Siren) and not have to manage multiple versions.
>
>Thanks for the suggestion!
>  Mark
>
>--------------------------
>Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
>(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
>http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html
>
>
>

--
        j. david farber
    oo architect+mentor
numenor labs incorporated
in sunny boulder colorado
    dfarber at numenor.com
        www.numenor.com