Amiga Serial Port Audio In/Out

[Tension]

What is the point of the Audio IN / OUT pins on the Serial port of the Amiga.

I have a RS-232 tester and noticed that the Audio Out line is high when sound is emitted in some programs.

Why??

And what the hell is the point of Audio In??

Surely you cant sample sounds that way??

Anyone??

[Hodgkinson]

They're just pass-through, I’m afraid. The first time I looked at the pinout I was also hoping that there was some kind of in-built digitiser.

Without going into all the detail of where the signals come from and go to within the Amiga, basically the audio out pin picks up the left-channel audio output from the Amiga. The audio in pin takes any incoming audio waveform and mixes it onto the Amiga's right audio output channel (Intended for modems, I think).

Along those lines, when I built a set of AAA test dongles for my Amiga’s I fitted the serial dongle with phono plugs for those pins, just in case I ever wanted a fast way to hook up to them, see http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2481

Hodgkinson.

[Tension]

Hodgkinson wrote:
Ah (Me typing)

 :-?

[Hodgkinson]

 :rtfm:  :-D

[Tension]

Hodgkinson wrote:
 :rtfm:  :-D

lol

[Hans_]

I have to wonder what the Amiga designers were thinking when they did this. Maybe the idea was that you could add effects hardware, or inject more audio. However, it's not even a stereo connection, so I doubt that doing this would be worth the effort.

Did anyone ever make hardware that used this feature?

Hans

[Hodgkinson]

I managed to wire a packet modem to use the “audio in” rail for indication ;-) But that’s about it.
The audio input rail is the only one that is marginally useful, as for the audio output I have no idea what it could be used with.

I also wonder why they didn't just fit a "standard" pinout serial port identical to that on PC's, without the additional audio and power rails for compatibility's sake.

[mongo]

Hans_ wrote:

I have to wonder what the Amiga designers were thinking when they did this. Maybe the idea was that you could add effects hardware, or inject more audio. However, it's not even a stereo connection, so I doubt that doing this would be worth the effort.

Did anyone ever make hardware that used this feature?

Hans

Commodore did, or at least was going to.

I'm pretty sure it was to be used by the Commodore 1100 AnswerMate, which if I remember correctly, was a device that would connect to the Amiga and allow you to use it as a telephone answering machine.

[Hans_]

mongo wrote:

Hans_ wrote:

I have to wonder what the Amiga designers were thinking when they did this. Maybe the idea was that you could add effects hardware, or inject more audio. However, it's not even a stereo connection, so I doubt that doing this would be worth the effort.

Did anyone ever make hardware that used this feature?

Hans

Commodore did, or at least was going to.

I'm pretty sure it was to be used by the Commodore 1100 AnswerMate, which if I remember correctly, was a device that would connect to the Amiga and allow you to use it as a telephone answering machine.

Well, voice-modems made this idea pretty-much obsolete.

Hans