DSPs have a lot of application areas that i haven't really given much thought yet. their main appeal for me had always a been audio, but they can process signals a lot faster than that.
@lore Digital Images, Modems of all bands, Radar, wired internet, Oscilloscopes and various scientific instruments.
Your DSP supports RTEMS or Real-Time Executive for Military Systems as it was once called. It is still in use in space by NASA.
The BeagleBoard has an OMAP chip that includes a TI TMS320 series DSP. In Embedded Systems the trend has been to integrate a real DSP, or something with similar capabilities, directly with an RISC processor. Fast communication speeds and integration allows for great performance.
As you have seen, getting documentation is difficult or behind NDAs. The ARM processors with DSPs are nightmares. The DSPs are one of the many walled gardens in development.
