We share pretty similar experiences with this. Only that in 1999 both our ISDN lines were in use during the day. That robbed me of the possibility of continuously downloading files, getting home and start enjoying the downloads.
My brother had an mp3 player in 1999. I think it had 16MB of storage space. I didn’t see the point of it when you could only put like 5 songs on the thing.
I could fit roughly 1 hour of music on mine, longer if I dropped the bitrate to 96kbps instead of 128.
The biggest benefit of the mp3 player was that the anti-skip protection didn’t drain the battery twice as fast, no moving parts so it never skipped. This seemed super cool to me because I skateboarded and stuff and generally liked the idea of no skips.
The biggest benefit of the mp3 player was that the anti-skip protection didn’t drain the battery twice as fast
I strongly disagree. In those days, mp3 players that fit single CDs that were slightly larger than a modern day thumb drive. And you could get 128mb ones for slightly more money. But that was much smaller and more portable than something that had to fit an entire CD.
BMWs in 2002 used Alpine head units. I knew their aftermarket units could play MP3 CDs so I thought “why not test it out?” Turns out it could play it just fine. It mapped the folder buttons to the seek/scan buttons if you held it and played them just fine. I was floored it did that but wasn’t anywhere in the manual.
That’s awesome, I had an iRiver as well. Ended up putting custom firmware on it after a bit as the original firmware was buggy at times and lacked features. The device itself was surprisingly capable and could even play video.
Sure it was, in America at least. I think I got my first PC that could burn disks in like 1998 and it was a mass marketed Compaq from Circuit City. Napster showed up the next year and CD burning exploded. Napster was dead by 2001.
I had this exact model in 2002. It was a revelation and possibly one of the best portable CD players ever released. You could sit there and tap it all day and it wouldn’t skip.
Man that one can play mp3 discs. That has to be newer than 2002. Burning CDs wasn’t super common yet.
I had a aftermarket head unit that played mp3 cds in 2002.
I had a mp3 player in 1999.
We were definitely burning cds back then, this woulda come at a premium but the tech was there.
I remember downloading mp3s from usenet in 1999 on my Windows 95 computer. I’d start the download, go to work, then retrieve the file when I got home.
I felt so fancy buying a CD burner at Best Buy so I could burn them onto CDs. It was the first PC component I ever installed by myself.
We share pretty similar experiences with this. Only that in 1999 both our ISDN lines were in use during the day. That robbed me of the possibility of continuously downloading files, getting home and start enjoying the downloads.
I remember being bummed by this back in the day.
My brother had an mp3 player in 1999. I think it had 16MB of storage space. I didn’t see the point of it when you could only put like 5 songs on the thing.
I could fit roughly 1 hour of music on mine, longer if I dropped the bitrate to 96kbps instead of 128.
The biggest benefit of the mp3 player was that the anti-skip protection didn’t drain the battery twice as fast, no moving parts so it never skipped. This seemed super cool to me because I skateboarded and stuff and generally liked the idea of no skips.
I strongly disagree. In those days, mp3 players that fit single CDs that were slightly larger than a modern day thumb drive. And you could get 128mb ones for slightly more money. But that was much smaller and more portable than something that had to fit an entire CD.
The biggest benefit for me
BMWs in 2002 used Alpine head units. I knew their aftermarket units could play MP3 CDs so I thought “why not test it out?” Turns out it could play it just fine. It mapped the folder buttons to the seek/scan buttons if you held it and played them just fine. I was floored it did that but wasn’t anywhere in the manual.
Yep, ripped CDs in 1998, Napster in 2000, installed a car stereo that played MP3 discs in 2001 (probably the last time I installed a car stereo).
I had that very device right about 2002. Put my whole CD collection on a few mp3 disks. Replaced it a few years later with a 6GB mp3 player.
Me too! I think it was around 2007 that i got an iRiver H10. My only other standalone music player I ever bought with my own money.
That’s awesome, I had an iRiver as well. Ended up putting custom firmware on it after a bit as the original firmware was buggy at times and lacked features. The device itself was surprisingly capable and could even play video.
Rockbox? I remember missing features on my H10 as well. I remember playing with rockbox themes and UI setting all the time, just for fun
Yeah, I think that was it. I also played a heck of a lot of sudoku on it.
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Sure it was, in America at least. I think I got my first PC that could burn disks in like 1998 and it was a mass marketed Compaq from Circuit City. Napster showed up the next year and CD burning exploded. Napster was dead by 2001.
I had this exact model in 2002. It was a revelation and possibly one of the best portable CD players ever released. You could sit there and tap it all day and it wouldn’t skip.
My car around 03 had a shit cassette deck that ate tapes. The mp3 discman with a cassette adapter was a game changer.
I had the entire Atari Teenage Riot and Mindless self Influence discography on one disk.
I’m sure the bit rate was abysmal, but with that kind of music it is kind of a feature.
I like your taste in music hahaha
MP3 was released in 1992 so MP3 cds were likely in the works long before that
I remember getting a MP3 player in 2000 that had 16Mb of space. If I compressed the shit out of the songs, I could fit almost a whole album on there!