[vox-tech] update on the audio CD problem

[Alex Mandel]

Micah J. Cowan wrote:
> Kernel space? What the heck are you talking about?
> 
> There is a direct analog connection from the CD drive to the sound card.
> It doesn't ever even touch the mother board. The signal sure as hell
> isn't routed out through the soundcard to the motherboard, and then back
> into the soundcard. No kernel, user, or any other sort of space is
> involved.  It's an analog signal, which isn't even representable in
> kernel or user space unless you convert it to digital, which kind of
> defeats the purpose.
> 
> No PCM, in any space.
> 
> Odds are pretty good that you can rig an Analog playback with a /fried/
> motherboard, so long as you have some way of getting power to the sound
> card, and one of those CD drives that has a play button on the front of
> it. Might take some hacking, and I'm not up to it, but... definitely no
> digital magic needed. Heck, throw out the _sound card_, and just press
> play on the front of your CD, with your headphones jacked into the
> front: it's the same signal.
> 

Just to note, my motherboard although I've never gotten this feature to 
work, has a BIOS toggle to enable the playing of CD's without booting 
the computer just by keyboard shortcuts (I think my keyboard is 
incompatible with the feature because of some weird hot key behavior)
ASUS A8N-Deluxe (I think)

Alex