Lib.rs

The library crate includes implementation of protocol for Fireworks board module and application devices connected to IEEE 1394 bus.

Fireworks board module

Echo Digital Audio corporation equipped Fireworks board module in 2004. The main function of module relies on two ICs; Texas Instruments TSB43CB43A (icelynx-Micro) and TMS320C67 DSP. The former IC covers all of features required to IEEE 1394 and IEC 61883-1/6 with customized firmware. The latter IC covers digital signal processing. Mackie Onyx 1200F and 400F, Echo Audio AudioFire 12 and 8 are the first generation.

The second generation replaces the DSP with Xilinx Spartan XC35250E FPGA. Echo Audio AudioFire 12 and 8 (in 2009 or later), AudioFire 2, AudioFire 4, AudioFirePre8, and Robot Interface Pack (RIP) of Gibson Robot Guitar series are at the latter generation.

The board module supports a pair of asynchronous transactions for command and response with unique content of frame. The commands are categorized to several categories. The frame can be delivers by plain asynchronous transaction to specific addresses as well as AV/C control operation. The crate just implements the former transaction.

Echo Digital Audio corporation has US patent (US7599388B2) which describes usage of shared memory with two banks between two processors to exchange data simultaneously between internal data bus and serial data bus. It probably explains about the way to communicate between iceLynx-micro and DSP/FPGA for audio frames.

ALSA fireworks driver

Linux sound subsystem, a.k.a ALSA, provides loadable kernel module (snd-fireworks) as driver for the units. The driver maintains isochronous packet streams for audio frames and MIDI messages as well as the command response mechanism by a pair of asynchronous transactions since the other internal functions such as digital signal processing can be operated by user space application directly.

The driver allows the application to utilize the command and response mechanism by executing system call. hitaki library has SndEfw GObject class for the purpose. The command and response mechanism is required to operate internal functions such as digital signal processing.

The crate depends on hitaki library so that runtime program can operate the internal functions except for isochronous packet streams.

Dependency

This is the list of dependent crates.

• glib crate
• hinawa crate
• hitaki crate

The glib and hinawa crates require some underlying system libraries

• glib library
• hinawa library
• hitaki library

The functions of Linux FireWire and Sound subsystem is called via hinawa and hitaki crates and libraries to communicate with node in IEEE 1394 bus, thus the crate is not portable.

Supported models

This is the list of models currently supported.

• Mackie (Loud) Onyx 1200F
• Mackie (Loud) Onyx 400F
• Echo Audio Audiofire 12 (till Jul 2009)
• Echo Audio Audiofire 8 (till Jul 2009)
• Echo Audio Audiofire 12 (since Jul 2009)
• Echo Audio Audiofire 8 (since Jul 2009)
• Echo Audio Audiofire 2
• Echo Audio Audiofire 4
• Echo Audio Audiofire Pre8
• Gibson Robot Interface Pack (RIP) for Robot Guitar series

Status of the crate

The crate is developed and maintained by ALSA GObject Introspection team for snd-firewire-ctl-services project, and not stable yet. The included Rust elements are likely changed without backward compatibility.

License

The crate is released under GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 or later with respect to clause for reverse engineering.

Support

If finding issue, please file it in https://github.com/alsa-project/snd-firewire-ctl-services/.

Disclaimer

The implementation of protocol is developed by the way of reverse engineering; sniffing IEEE 1394 bus to which target device is connected, and analysis of the communication between the device and driver provided by hardware vendor. Fortunately, developer got source code for command and response mechanism endowed by Echo Digital Audio corporation, and permission to re-implement them to open source software. Nevertheless it's natural not to work with your device since developer worked with blackbox.