Digital signal processor

A Digital Signal Processor (DSP) is a chip designed to process digital signals (such as video or voice data) in realtime. DSP's use highly parallel SIMD (Single instruction multiple data) instruction sets, and use fixed-point arithmatic (as opposed to floating point). As such, they are suited to certain, specialised applications.

The Falcon 030 was only computer manufactured by Atari to be equipped with a DSP, the Motorola 56001, which made it a highly capable machine for the recording music (with the ability to add effects and filters in real-time). Innovative programming techniques also put the 56001 to work as a general coprocessor, performing certain tasks in parallel to the CPU to achieve tasks the 68030 CPU may ordinarily not have been able to do on its own. Examples of such tasks include the realtime playback of MP3's (a feat not achievable by contemporary machines of similar processing power to the Falcon, such as the Amiga 1200 and Apple Mac LC\30), fast decompression of JPEG images, and the production of realtime visual effects in demos and graphics software.