The Accelerando Project
Keith Lent, Russell Pinkston, and Peter Silsbee

The University of Texas/White Instruments Accelerando Box

Features:

  • 27 MHz Motorola 56001 DSP

  • 2K EEROM for stored programs

  • Up to 4 Megawords of DRAM for samples

  • Quad 20-bit D/A and stereo 18-bit A/D with balanced XLR Connectors

  • Professional AES/EBU digital audio interface.

  • Direct Digital I/O ports for daisy-chaining multiple boxes and to provide direct access to the 56001's SSI and SCI ports.

  • MIDI In/Out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The University of Texas Accelerando System consists of a real-time, MIDI-controlled audio signal processor based on the Motorola DSP56001, a synthesis language called MUSIC56000 written in DSP56000 assembly language, and a number of Microsoft Windows-based software applications to program, control, and monitor the processor from a PC. The original hardware prototype was first demonstrated at the 1989 International Computer Music Conference at Ohio State University, and the complete system was described in detail in an article published in the Computer Music Journal (Volume 14:3, 1989). The processor was co-designed by Keith Lent, Russell Pinkston, and Peter Silsbee; the prototype hardware built by Silsbee, the DSP code written by Lent, and the host software written by Lent and Pinkston. The technology was subsequently licensed to White Instruments, Inc., which custom built 8 enhanced Accelerando Boxes for The University of Texas in 1991, and incorporated the basic design into their DSP4700 digital audio processors. The enhanced design is described in an article entitled The University of Texas Accelerando Project: An Update, published in the Proceedings of  the 1992 International Computer Music Conference at San Jose State University.

Computer Music Journal Volume 13, Number 4
 

MUSIC56000, the DSP synthesis language developed for the Accelerando boxes by Keith Lent, is available for ftp download from The UTEMS web site here.

Patchwork, the symbolic compiler originally developed to facilitate writing DSP synthesis code in MUSIC56000, was subsequently modified to support MIT's Csound language. The executable of the Csound version is available here. The sources can be obtained from r.pinkston@mail.utexas.edu.

WinView, the Windows-based digital audio editor for the Accelerando System described in the 1989 CMJ article, was renamed AudioVisualization, because Microsoft came out with their own  program called WinView. It was modified in 1995 to support the Windows Multimedia System, but development was suspended because a number of excellent audio editors have become commercially available. The executable for AudioVisualization is available here. The sources can be obtained from r.pinkston@mail.utexas.edu.

The Accelerando Project was supported by grants from Apple Corporation, Motorola, The University Research Institute of The University of Texas at Austin, and White Instruments, Inc.

 

Computer Music Journal Volume 13, Number 4