Introduction; What You Should Know; Scope And Manual Organization - Creative SB0350 Programming Manual

What You Should Know

This manual assumes you are familiar with system level programming on the IBM
PC. This includes programming knowledge of the Direct Memory Access (DMA)
Controller, Programmable Interrupt Controller (PIC), and System Timer. Refer to
"Relevant Information" in the appendix if you need more information on these
subjects.
Familiarity in programming the X86-family of microprocessors is also required,
since assembly code for that range of microprocessors is used in many of the
discussions.
This manual also assumes you are familiar with changing the base I/O address,
interrupt and DMA channels of Sound Blaster cards.
Some chapters in this manual assume additional knowledge on your part. The
introductions to these chapters will list these assumptions.

Scope and Manual Organization

This manual focuses on the Creative-specific hardware programming of the
following:
Refer to Appendix B, "Relevant Information" if you are interested in programming
the FM chips or the joystick.
This manual is divided into the following chapters:
Chapter 1, "Hardware Overview", gives an overview and functional block diagram of
the Sound Blaster cards.
Chapter 2, "Introduction to DSP Programming", presents the basic knowledge needed
to access the DSP. You may not be able to proceed until you have mastered the
characteristics of the DSP. Read this chapter carefully.
Digital Sound Processor
Mixer Chip
MIDI Port

Introduction

ix