#54 Unified audio with PortAudio

[Solra Bizna]

http://www.portaudio.com/
I've tested it, it seems to work. Its list of ports is... extensive.
It coexists fine with the MacOS (and SDL). It has an interface
similiar to that of SDL, but it gives more control of audio output,
and even has audio input support (on _every_ ported platform). I
suggest that someone here look into it, and convert the audio code
to use it. I would attempt it myself, but I'm working on another,
really massive, project.
-:sigma.SB

[Alexander Strange]

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I see no benefit to adding another library to replace code that already
works. I might be interested in OpenAL, since it would improve the 3D-
sound quality.

[Gregory Smith]

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The input code doesn't "already work" with Linux, BeOS, etc.
PortAudio would let us simplify the net mic code, shift
maintenance over to a project with more expertise, and add
support for more platforms. I've been waiting on SDL to add
audio input support (which has been discussed).
Unfortunately it could take a while, since SDL seems to move
along even more slowly than Aleph One.

OpenAL doesn't support audio input, so it wouldn't do us
much good here.