FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

      		Open Sound System v3.9 for Linux Released.

CULVER CITY, CA, June 1, 1998: 4Front Technologies is announcing the 
availability of Open Sound System(TM)(OSS) version 3.9 for Linux 
for Intel x86 PCs.

OSS provides sound card drivers for most popular sound cards 
under Linux. These drivers support digital audio, MIDI, Synthesizers 
and mixers found on sound cards. These sound drivers comply with the 
Open Sound System API specification. 

OSS provides a user-friendly GUI which makes the installation of 
sound drivers and configuration of sound cards very simple. OSS 
supports over 200 brand name sound cards. OSS drivers provide 
automatic sound card detection, Plug-n-Play support, support for PCI 
audio soundcards and support for full duplex audio. A list of all
the soundcards is available at http://www.opensound.com/osshw.html

OSS now features:
o Full duplex for Sound Blaster and Vibra16X soundcards
o Support for PCI cards from Creative, Ensoniq and S3 (others coming soon!)
o Support for CMI8330 soundcards
o Support for Crystal CS423x PnP sound cards
o Support for Yamaha OPL3-SAx sound cards
o Support for Analog Devices AD1816 sound cards
o Support for OPTi931 sound cards

"v3.9 represents the culmination of over a year's worth of developement
to add new soundcards, full duplex support for all soundcards, major bug
fixes, support for PCI sound cards and the development of SoftOSS",
said Mr. Hannu Savolainen, Vice President of Engineering. 

4Front is also announcing new features and improvements in its 
SoftOSS(TM) technology. SoftOSS provides a software based wave-table 
engine called Virtual Synth that can render MIDI and MOD music files 
without requiring any special wave-table hardware. Any 16bit soundcard 
can now playback MIDI music via wave-table synthesis.

A new component of SoftOSS called Virtual Mixer also provides real-time 
mixing of up to 8 stereo audio channels. The Virtual Mixer will enable 
users to configure up to 8 audio applications to output sound at the same 
time. It is particularly useful when one needs to hear audio output from 
browsers, window managers, streaming audio, and games simultaneously.

4Front is pleased to announce that the SoftOSS Virtual Synth has been 
incorporated with the Linux kernel sound drivers (OSS/Free) and been
placed under GPL. 4Front has also contributed various bug fixes and sound
drivers for new sound cards back to the OSS/Free kernel source distribution.
"OSS is a prime example of the benefits of Open Source", said Mr. Dev
Mazumdar, President of 4Front Technologies. "4Front has always been 
committed to the Open Source developer community by giving away a subset 
of the sound driver sources with the kernel source distribution. OSS now
enjoys the widest set of audio applications compared to any other UNIX
audio architecture".

4Front Technologies is also pleased to announce the formation of
the Applications Group which will be focussed on delivering feature rich
audio applications to support OSS. "We are extremely happy to have the 
developers of the popular x11amp program join 4Front Technologies and 
develop audio applications for support of new features and new soundcards 
that will be added to OSS", said Mr. Mazumdar.

For more information and to download a free 7 day evaluation version, 
visit 4Front's WWW site at http://www.opensound.com/linux-x86.html
A fully licensed version of OSS starts at $20.00. The licensed version 
of OSS comes with free technical support and free updates to the drivers.
Existing OSS customers on Linux are entitled to a free upgrade.

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All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Open Sound System is a trademark of 4Front Technologies.
Copyright (C) 1996-1998, 4Front Technologies, All Rights Reserved.

Contact: Dev Mazumdar

4Front Technologies
4035 Lafayette Place, Unit F
Culver City, CA 90232
USA.

Tel: (310) 202 8530		E-mail: info@opensound.com
Fax: (310) 202 0486		Web: http://www.opensound.com