OS4 on a Virus A?

[kev009]

I know they say not to do it, but has anyone ever hacked OS4 on a Virus A?

It is the same DSP afterall :->.

[Doc Jones]

keep in mind that even though the virus A thru C series all utilize a single Motorola DSP chip, it isn't the same dsp chip. The code is rewritten to take advantage of the additional features provided by each hardware and firmware upgrade. So even if you were able to port it to the A series, it wouldn't provide much advantage as it would be making calls to nonexistent features.

[kev009]

Thanks for the reply. I thought they were the same DSP through the Virus C? Actually the biggest problem I see is that there isn't much memory on the A. V4 may have simply been too large. If all else fails maybe I can hack at the 2.8 OS and make it glitchy .


<random though>
I opened up my Virus A and it was pretty unimpressive inside. Basically a LCD and corresponding circuitry, 20bit dacs, a DSP and the control panel. I don't know what the DSP was worth in 1997, but altogether it can't be more than $100 of materials.

I think people are full of shit when they say that software is inferior to digital hardware. Don't get me wrong, the Virus A and newer are nice bits of kit -- tactile control, all mapped perfectly and well integrated. BUT DSPs do integer ops. A modern x86 64 bit CPU could blow the pants off one of these and you get the benefit of fp, smid, and soon GPGPU from what was once the video card (talk about a serious stream processor!).

[Doc Jones]

yeah, I should have prefaced my post by saying that "I believe" that they are different dsp chips based on what I've read. But regardless, you bring up a very good point about the difference in amount of memory.

just curious, but what feature are you looking for?

[kev009]

Nothing specific.. this thing just isn't particularly useful to me in current form. The sound is alright, nothing to write home about and not particularly fat. I thought maybe I'd give some tweaking a go to make it more interesting. Maybe I'd be better of selling it and picking up a Virus Snow :-P.

[Doc Jones]

I say go for the snow :) But if you do decide to do some OS tweaking, i would be real curious to see what your results are.