System specifications 99
The fax/modem portion of the board and the NEC Connections
communications software provide modem, fax, full-duplex
speakerphone, and voicemail capabilities. The board comes with a
52-Kbps (kilobytes per second) data/14.4-Kbps fax modem. The
board also supports data transfer at 56 Kbps outside of the U.S.
See the following for fax/modem/sound board features.
Sound
Features of the sound portion of the board include:
music synthesizer
surround sound
MIDI interface
wavetable synthesis.
The music synthesizer uses a 16-bit stereo Frequency Modulation
(FM) synthesizer. FM synthesis exploits the fact that modulating one
waveform with another waveform produces a waveform with many
more harmonics than were present in the modulator or carrier (the
modulated waveform).
The frequency of the modulator-to-carrier determines which
harmonics result. The amount of modulation determines how many of
the potential harmonics result. Using integer and non-integer ratios
allow the application to create rich harmonics and inharmonic sounds.
Surround sound, also called SRS 3D sound, is a Sound Retrieval
System
®
. The system creates a three-dimensional sound image with
only two conventional speakers. Using pre-recorded music, the
system retrieves the spatial information and restores the original
three-dimensional sound field. The reproduced sound is much closer
to a live performance.