firewire-tascam-protocols

The library crate includes implementation of protocols for models of TASCAM FireWire series, designed to audio and music unit in IEEE 1394 bus.

TASCAM FireWire series

As of 2022, TASCAM is an subsidiary of TEAC Corporation. FW-1884 was launched in 2003 as the first TASCAM product for audio and music unit in IEEE 1394 bus. At the same time, FE-8 was launched as expander unit for FW-1884. FW-1082 was launched in 2005 as console model smaller than FW-1884. FW-1804 was launched in 2006 as rack model. The above models were provided by the joint project between TASCAM and Frontier Design Group.

The models transmit state of hardware by subsequence of quadlet messages, while the way of transmission is different between models. The most of models transmit the message in isochronous packet multiplexed with PCM frame. FE-8 is an exception to transmits the message by asynchronous transaction to registered address.

ALSA firewire-tascam driver

Linux sound subsystem, a.k.a ALSA, provides loadable kernel module (snd-firewire-tascam) as driver for the units except for FE-8. The driver maintains isochronous packet stream for audio frames and the state messages as well as MIDI transmission by asynchronous transaction.

The driver allows user space application to retrieve the cached state and read notification for the state change by executing system call. hitaki library has SndTascam GObject class for the purpose. The class implements TascamProtocol GObject interface, which is also implemented by asynch::TascamExpander structure so that FE-8 can be supported as well.

Anyway, the crate is supplemental implementation for runtime program to configure digital signal processing functions and console surfaces which are not implemented in the driver.

Dependency

This is the list of dependent crates.

• glib crate
• hinawa crate
• hitaki crate
• ieee1212-config-rom crate

The glib and hinawa crates require some underlying system libraries

• glib library
• hinawa library
• hitaki library

The functions of Linux FireWire and Sound subsystem is called via hinawa and hitaki crates and libraries to communicate with node in IEEE 1394 bus, thus the crate is not portable.

Supported models

This is the list of models currently supported.

• Tascam FW-1884
• Tascam FW-1082
• Tascam FW-1804
• Tascam FE-8

Status of the crate

The crate is developed and maintained by ALSA GObject Introspection team for snd-firewire-ctl-services project, and not stable yet. The included Rust elements are likely changed without backward compatibility.

License

The crate is released under GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 or later with respect to clause for reverse engineering.

Support

If finding issue, please file it in https://github.com/alsa-project/snd-firewire-ctl-services/.

Disclaimer

The implementation of protocol is developed by the way of reverse engineering; sniffing IEEE 1394 bus to which target device is connected, and analysis of the communication between the device and driver provided by hardware vendor. It's natural not to work with your device since developer worked with blackbox.

Utilities

Some programs are available under 'src/bin' directory.

tascam-config-rom-parser.rs

This program parses content of Configuration ROM specialized by TASCAM, then print the information.

Without any command line argument, it prints help message and exit.

$ cargo run --bin tascam-config-rom-parser
Usage:
  tascam-config-rom-parser CDEV

  where:
    CDEV:       The path to special file of firewire character device, typically '/dev/fw1'.

Please run with an argument for firewire character device:

$ cargo run --bin tascam-config-rom-parser /dev/fw1
...

tascam-hardware-info.rs

This program retrieves information from node of target device by protocol defined by TASCAM, then print the information.

Without any command line argument, it prints help message and exit.

$ cargo run --bin tascam-hardware-info
Usage:
  tascam-hardware-info CDEV

  where:
    CDEV:       The path to special file of firewire character device, typically '/dev/fw1'.

Please run with an argument for firewire character device:

$ cargo run --bin tascam-hardware-info /dev/fw1
...