SUN Workstations

Sun Workstations have built in speakers, or stereo speakers or headphones can be plugged in. On a workstation, audio files with .au, .wav or .snd file extensions can be played or recorded using audiotool.

X-Terminals

NCD X-terminals can use the same types of speakers or headphones as PCs. NCDware automatically configures the speaker jack as a pseudodevice at /dev/audio, so no configuration needs to be done by the system administrator. Audio files with .au, .wav or.snd extensions can be played using autool or audemo (recording and playing). Autool is a simple audio player. Audemo is a more complete program for recording, playing and saving audio files.

Downloading and playing audio files using Netscape

By default, Netscape calls the OpenWindows audiotool to play audio files. Audiotool will not work with an X-terminal. To configure Netscape to use autool choose Options -> General Preferences -> Helpers. This menu edits your $home/.mime.types file, which specifies applications to be associated with specific file extensions. For each type of audio file (eg. .wav, .ai, .snd, . change the application under "Handle By" to

and then save the options. More often than not, if there are problems playing a particular type of audio file, the fix will have to be done from this menu.

RealTime Audio

Unfortunately, at present there is no software on our system to play Real Audio, which is the format in which most live broadcasts are done. Real Audio makes a player for the Sparc/Solaris platform, but it has not yet been installed on our system. (Installation requires root privileges.) It is also likely that as NCD expands its JAVA tools, this will change. RealAudio makes a

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