---
name: "harmony"
section: "4"
platform: "openbsd"
package: "man"
version: "8.0-current-20261101"
release: "OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01)"
platforms: ["openbsd"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/harmony"
---

# harmony(4)

CS4215/AD1849 audio device

## NAME

**harmony** – CS4215/AD1849 audio device

## SYNOPSIS

**harmony\* at gsc? irq 13** **audio\*  at harmony?**

## DESCRIPTION

The **harmony** device uses the Crystal Semiconductor CS4215 16-Bit Multimedia Audio Codec or Analog Devices AD1849 SoundPort(R) Stereo Codec chip to implement the audio device interface described in [audio(4)](/audio/4.md). This device is found on most HP PA-RISC workstations. The **harmony** has a maximum precision of 16 bits and has a stereo input and stereo output.

On HP 9000/712 models **harmony** also provides two additional channels for an add-on card with two fax/voice modems.

One of the hardware registers reflects the state of the CHI bus that is used to communicate with the codec and thus being sampled at a low accuracy secondary frequency (such as [timeout(9)](/timeout/9.md)) produces poor quality random bit stream that is fed into the entropy pool of [random(4)](/random/4.md).

## SEE ALSO

[ioctl(2)](/ioctl/2.md), [audio(4)](/audio/4.md), [gsc(4)](/gsc/4.md), [intro(4)](/intro/4.md), [random(4)](/random/4.md)

## HISTORY

OpenBSD support for **harmony** first appeared in OpenBSD 3.3.

## CAVEATS

To trigger entropy collection CHI bus has to be programmed into the data mode that happens once a single buffer of data has been played or recorded.