So we’ve been cleaning out my inlaws house this week and we came across one of the original iPod Minis, the one with the actual 4GB spinning Toshiba drive in it.
After a somewhat Rube Goldberg combo of cables and adapters, I was able to connect it to my daughters M1 MacBook Air, and actually charge it and load music on it.
It’s a silver one and very pristine, though apparently the battery suffered a bit from being unused for so long, (it lasts about 90 minutes) but I’m a bit amazed that I was able to get it working at all.
Two other things, I forgot how good the original iPods sounded via their headphone jack, and how much I still like the click wheel interface.
That is amazing…maybe I should resuscitate my old Toshiba 1100 Plus and see if I can even still read that tiny 80 character reflective LCD…aren’t there still bits of DOS 2.1 code in Win11… …if i could find an acoustic coupler (and an old phone) I could could dig up “You’ve got mail!”
My son runs some old Dos games in his web browser, original Zork and Leisure Suit Larry (still one of the more politically incorrect, but funny games ever)
You should hear the sound quality of some Sony Walkman(later models) sounded mp3/pmps, those were like step & half above the iPod(from experience & reviews). I have a Mini somewhere at home that has a 16gb cf card running rockbox on it(had a lot of flac files back then) & should try to find. Rockbox really made that device better for me.
Cool. I was a big Sony Fan back in the days when I was really into all things audio.
I never had one of their MP3 players, but I did have several of their mini disc recorders.
However my very favorite portable audio device, i bought and wore out two of them, was their Walkman Professional cassette recorders. They even had Dolby noise reduction(B Originally and the last one had C)
And judging by the ebay price, I wish I still had one.
Last year I rediscovered my old IPod classic. I love that thing. Like it ao much I had a new battery installed. I get about 15-20 hours of use out of it. Not bad.
Connected to my win 10 Galaxy Flex, and all was well. Have 60 GB of music on it. Good sound quality. And I love the focus- I leave my phone elsewhere, and am totally not available. But I’ve got my music on hand. Love it!
Loved my iPod Mini. I even had it engraved as I got it direct from Apple. I did get it just a few months before the Nano was released… at least it didn’t scratch easily.
Showing my youth here, but I was rather too enamoured, as just after I got it, someone who’d climbed Everest twice popped by to visit my family. I was not interested in him at all and instead was messing about with my iPod.
I have it right in front of me right now, even. A bit battered and dented, but still working.
Speaking of Sony Walkman’s: I remember drooling over the NW-X1000. And to think we called things like that expensive!
I got one of their later gen mp3 players that didn’t require that weird Sony software for my sister. It was great device as it has did 35 hours of battery life, came with better than competition stock headphones & did video when the iPod Nano couldn’t. The battery life is what sold us on it cause it would last a long flights.
I also still have an ipod mini, and somewhere deep in my bookmarks hierarchy is a link to how to replace the battery and upgrade the storage. One day I’ll actually do it!
…if i could find an acoustic coupler (and an old phone) I could could dig up “You’ve got mail!”