March 11th, 2008
MP3 Player is 10 Years Old This Month
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
Happy Birthday Mr. MP3 player! 10 years old and look how far you have come. From the first player shown here - the all but forgotten MPMan F10 from Korean manufacturer Saehan Information Systems, to today’s iPod-dominated array of colorful video/audio players, things have certainly evolved.
The MP3Man F10 boasted a whopping 32MBs of flash-based storage to hold about 8 songs sampled at 128Kb/s. Songs were loaded onto the player via the parallel port (anyone remember configuring ports and getting COM and IRQ conflicts?) Retail price $250.
When Diamond brought the Rio PMP300 to market at $200, the player race was on. Many think that the Rio PMP300 was the first MP3 player, but a lawsuit wit the the RIAA gave it enough press to leave the F10 in the dust. (Until Apple came calling.) Sony meanwhile was focused on the doomed MiniDisc, and the rest as they say, was history. Source: The Register
We Say: Check out those tiny LCD displays!
Update: Want more Rio pics? Check out RioWorld. (I have owned 3 models myself.)
Alex R says:
I have a friend who still loves his minidisc player. I haven’t seen him in a while, but as far as I know he still uses it.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:36 am
CK says:
I used to have that RIO PMP300. Not only could it only hold about 8 to 15 songs (128kbps to 32kpbs), but it used a single AA battery that would last about 6 hours.
After switching from my sony walkman with ESP the mp3 player blew my mind in 1999.
March 12th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Jason says:
MiniDisc is still the best way to record live music!
March 12th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Swen Skullsplitter says:
A bit off topic, concerning the minidisc. I recorded with one, early last year. When it comes to audio quality, it beats the tar out of mp3, even at MP3’s highest bitrates. No other lossy compression comes closer to cd quality, even to this day.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Swen Skullsplitter says:
another thing…
Alice, don’t go away anymore!
March 12th, 2008 at 9:41 pm