[alsa-devel] Old firmware version for Dice II ASIC

[Takashi Sakamoto]

Hi,

On Apr 20 2018 01:21, Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
>> On Apr 19 2018 17:54, Clemens Ladisch wrote:
>>> Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
>>>> 183 /* Some old firmware versions do not have the following global registers: */
>>>> ...
>>>> 188 #define GLOBAL_CLOCK_CAPABILITIES       0x064
>>>>
>>>> But this is not proper in my case because the maximum offset on global
>>>> sub-address space is 0x05c in quadlet unit.
>>>
>>> IIRC that comment was based on the documentation.  Apparently, there was
>>> a misunderstanding of "size 0x60" vs. "up to the register at 0x60".
>>
>>  From my curiosity, do you know which version of DICE firstly supports GLOBAL_VERSION register? Can you read it on the documentation?
> 
> I misremembered: I did not find anything about this in the documentation.
> 
> This is derived from TCAT's host driver, which unconditionally reads everything
> up to the clock capabilities register, and checks for a size larger than 0x64
> to detect if the firmware supports clock capabilities.

Hm. In a case of this device with the firmware, I experienced that the 
latest proprietary driver for windows 7 (v3.5.3.8671) [1] cannot detect 
it. I can see below message.

"Driver error: Device firmware operation error
Check the driver configuration or device connections."

Additionally, Alesis had released v3.0.81.1080 driver for windows XP and 
this included v2.0 firmware[2] (but it's not clear that which DICE 
version is used for this release).

In my reasoning, DICE firmware loses backward compatibility in its early 
stage (e.g. DICE v1.0.2) due to the GLOBAL_VERSION register. And in 
coincidence the unit has the old version firmware.

>>> The version register is checked only once (in get_subaddrs()) and does not
>>> actually affect the behaviour of the driver, so it would not hurt to simply
>>> omit that check on the old firmware.
>>
>> Hm. The check is applied to the other spaces such as rx/tx, so I'd like to
>> leave it as is.
> 
> Sorry, "that check" meant the version check for 0x01000000.  Your patch
> already implements what I suggested.
> 
>> With this patch[1], ALSA dice driver can handle the unit. In this weekend, I'll post it. Your reviewing is very helpful.
>>
>> [1] https://github.com/takaswie/snd-firewire-improve/commit/1889e06b9593e16da2812010ffd5a8e4b9bc777d
> 
>> +	/* Old firmware doesn't support these fields. */
>> +	if (dice->clock_caps == 0) {
>> +		dice->sync_offset = be32_to_cpu(pointers[6]) * 4;
>> +		dice->rsrv_offset = be32_to_cpu(pointers[8]) * 4;
>> +	}
> 
> Shouldn't this be clock_caps!=0?

Yep, I did mistake. I pushed fixed one to my repository.

[1] This version is available at below URL:
http://www.alesis.com/products/view/multimix-12-firewire
[2] I can find a web page at internet archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080227094953/http://www.alesis.com:80/multimix12firewire


Thanks

Takashi Sakamoto