CSOUND ON CHROMEBOOKS (April 2023) Art Hunkins abhunkin@uncg.edu For those on a budget, Chromebooks are an excellent way to work with Csound. Michael Gogins' Csound for Andoid has been available for many years as an Android app at play.google.com. It offers a fine standalone platform even for realtime performance. As our recent COVID pandemic has required much remote education, we now find many Chromebooks on the used and refurbished market at bargain prices - many below $50US, particularly on eBay. These are available with and without touchscreens. (Touchscreens models add only barely to the expense on the used market.) Those with touchscreens allow for realtime performance with Csound for Android's 9 sliders, 5 buttons and trackpad. Full console is selectable for rendering both in and out of real time. A Csound text editor is bundled within the app, as is a basic user guide to Android Csound. As I work primarily with realtime controls, the touchscreen is a must. (Parenthetically, I'll mention that the Chromebook is the only Android device that permits the use of two or more Csound sliders simultaneously.) A complete list of Chromebooks that can access Google Play, and thus Csound for Android, is found at : https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chrome-os-systems-supporting-android-apps/ . Lots of relevant information can be found on this site. Don't waste your time looking for older Chromebooks not on this list. As mentioned in the article above, Chromebooks made from 2019 on all have access to Google Play, as well as those *on the list* dating from 2016. A number of these include touchscreens. (I can attest to the fact that the CTL NL7 downloads Csound, while CTL N6 Education Chromebooks do not.) A good early touchscreen model that *can* download Csound for Android is fairly widely available (on eBay and Amazon) at a lowest price (<$50): the Acer C738T. (Notice that a T suffix usually suggests a touchscreen model.) It will do all you'll probably ever want to do with a Chromebook on Csound. Other low-price Csound-ready units I've had good luck with are the Prowise Touch Proline and eduGear CMT (both touch, and with easily replaceable if expensive battery), and the eduGear M4 (with replaceable battery but no touchscreen). I've also found the CTL N7 to be quite serviceable. (Though lacking a touchscreen, it has adjustable camera positioning as well as a builtin carrying handle.) When looking for a Chromebook, do the following: 1) Search (on eBay) for "Chromebook", or better, "Chromebook touch", and Lowest Price First. (There are a number of listings that allow for Make an Offer; I've quite often been successful making offers.) 2) Look for 4GB RAM and 16GB (or if lucky, 32GB) SSD, and an *Intel* processor. 3) Make sure a charger (and working battery) are included. Chargers can be expensive and sometimes hard to find. Unlike tablets, Chromebook chargers can be quite specific to their particular model. Thankfully, chargers *are* normally included unless the listing indicates "no charger." You may need to search the descriptions (and photos) carefully. If in doubt, ask the seller for information; some will actually reply! 4) Read or watch reviews of the various units online. They'll discuss specs (often in great detail), as well as offer pros and cons. 5) Make sure the unit is in relatively good condition. No keys or pieces missing, everything working, nothing bashed in. (I've never actually been shipped a unit badly represented; just watch out for non-working batteries and missing power supplies.) Don't be concerned about how long the OS upgrades will last. The more recent upgrades won't make a significant difference to you. I've even found the Acer C738T to do a very satisfactory virtual meeting (Zoom and the like; my favorite being the free, open-source Jitsi). The older OS's seem to handle the newest virtual meeting features just fine. Of course virtual meetings do require a high-speed ethernet connection. No problem. Though Chromebooks do not have ethernet ports, all you need to obtain is a gigabit ethernet USB3.0 adapter for whatever kind of USB port your Chromebook has, and plug it in. The adapter works equally fast on a 3.0 or 2.0 port. Don't get a USB 2.0 *adapter*; it will give you only a bit more than half the speed. (Some 2.0 adapters actually reduce speed below that of Wi-Fi!) All Chromebooks give you hassle-free built-in mike (with accessible level control!) to allow easy setup for virtual meetings. (The Acer C738T even has a fairly robust audio output.) I do most of my virtual meetings these days on Chromebooks. In all ways, I find Chromebooks to be infinitely superior to Chrome tablets - even the larger ones. Speed, keyboard and screen size are just the beginning. These days you can buy a used Chromebook for less than a new tablet that looks like a toy. With a Chromebook you can get real Csound work done. Enough said! One final comment: There is a significant detail about Csound for Android on Chromebooks that is different from that on smartphones: the Music folder, where all Csound workfiles (including samples and audio output) need to be stored, is in a different (and not so obvious) location. Once Csound is installed, you'll find the folder under: My Files / Play Files / (*then* Music). Moreover, within Csound a complete path to this location must be specified whenever reading from or writing to it. The pathname required: "/sdcard/Music/filename". The name must be enclosed in quotes except when it refers to audio output.