Re: gnuplot audio driver?

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Allin Cottrell wrote:

>I wonder if anyone has experimented with an audio driver of any sort
>for gnuplot?
>
>I ask because I face the interesting challenge, this coming Fall, of
>teaching a data analysis class that will include a blind student.
>
>Allin Cottrell
>

There are the Octave audio functions.  However, the documentation on a 
few of them is what I suspected (end of first paragraph below).  A 
fairly standard audio card might (might!) work with the existing Octave 
version.  Recording properly is probably more unlikely.

=====

   The following functions for audio I/O require special A/D hardware
and operating system support.  It is assumed that audio data in linear
encoding can be played and recorded by reading from and writing to
`/dev/dsp', and that similarly `/dev/audio' is used for mu-law
encoding.  These file names are system-dependent.  Improvements so that
these functions will work without modification on a wide variety of
hardware are welcome.

 - Function File:  playaudio (NAME, EXT)
 - Function File:  playaudio (X)
     Plays the audio file `NAME.EXT' or the audio data stored in the
     vector X.

 - Function File:  record (SEC, SAMPLING_RATE)
     Records SEC seconds of audio input into the vector X.  The default
     value for SAMPLING_RATE is 8000 samples per second, or 8kHz.  The
     program waits until the user types <RET> and then immediately
     starts to record.

 - Function File: setaudio ([W_TYPE [, VALUE]])
     executes the shell command `mixer [W_TYPE [, VALUE]]'