IBM and Mp3 95
Trepidity writes "Wired is reporting that IBM is working with at least three other companies about the possible use of their ~350MB microdrive in portable MP3 players. Sure beats having only 32MB on a flash card. "
Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than being flat broke and having a stomach ache. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
Disk-on-a-chip (Score:1)
(For those who don't know, PC/104 is a standard for single board computers that are less than 4"x4").
- pmitros
What I WOULD like to see... (Score:1)
By the way, I'd assume that the little hard dive probably eats up a lot more power than solid-state memory. What kind of battery life would you get with one of these microdrive systems compared to an existing solid-state machine?
er.. the palm pilot has enough CPU to play mp3s? (Score:1)
er.. the palm pilot has enough CPU to play mp3s? (Score:1)
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
Moving Parts (Score:1)
Maybe due to encoding errors.. Mine doesn't skip. I've been listening to nothing but 128 kbps files for a few days now and mine hasn't skipped even once.
re-inventing the minidisc (Score:1)
MP Man does (Score:1)
Dumbed Down Journalism (Score:1)
Chances of it working on a Rio? (Score:1)
Anybody think there are any chances of the IBM Micodrive thingy getting adapted some strange way to work on a rio???
Moving Parts (Score:1)
Methinks moving parts isn't as much of a worry as one might think. Every -man since the transistor radio has had SOME moving parts, so we just make them more efficient with power. After all, CD players spin merrily along for hours before their batteries die.
-Bob
Drive Integrety (Score:1)
I'm just picturing a jogger, a bouncing MP3 unit, perhaps a stumble or two, and head crashes galore...
It's a configuration, not performance issue (Score:1)
USB is 12 Mbit/s -- plenty fast to handle even an ISDN modem (20 kbytes/s there, with compression) and a sound box playing audio at CD quality (173 kbyte/s) simultaneously. Now if you were talking about a Ethernet card, which (in 100 MHz mode) can move upwards of 10 MB/s, then PCI would be your best bet. But a 56k dialup modem (maybe 8k/s tops there) or an ISDN link doesn't need that sort of bandwidth -- I'm leaving out cable and xDSL because they usually connect through Ethernet.
Trend here? (Score:1)
I think I see a trend. Computer manufacturers seem to be very slow to accept new technology. Heck, new computers *still* have ISA in them. Why can't we all move to new technology??
Well, it seems like all that technology that computer manufacturers dislike is being put to good use in consumer devices (MP3 players, eBooks, email pagers, etc.) The other thing that these consumer devices is that they follow KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) You press a button and it works. You don't have to worry about rebooting your pager (at least I would hope so.) So the moral I see is that new tech + KISS -> Consumer Devices -?> money. Nice.
-Ben
It's a configuration, not performance issue (Score:1)
The reason for the PCI push, such as PC'99 which says "no ISA at all", is because ISA devices are very difficult to configure correctly. One of the reasons why PnP doesn't work on PC systems is because it just doesn't work on ISA. By eliminating ISA entirely, DMA and IRQ problems disappear completely. The only resource a PCI device uses is memory, and it can allocate its memory anywhere in the 4GB range. Any IRQ's the device needs can be shared with any other PCI device.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
But USB is for external devices (Score:1)
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
400Mb? (Score:1)
Bad for Radio? (Score:1)
A lot of the music could be saved on the drives and either set to random or create a playlist and you'll have plenty of music to choose from without the hassle of changing CD's or tapes.
I think this'll affect radio more than it does the record companies. Yes I know many people will download MP3's from the net (but that's happening now and people then just burn the audio to normal CD or tape to listen to on the move) but most people will still probably buy the CD's and convert them to MP3 to create a customised music experience. Less people will then have the need for radio.
However, although I like radio. I still think these devices are worth having because the radio isn't good all day.
--
Moving Parts (Score:1)
--
Bad for Radio? (Score:1)
--
Dumbed Down Journalism (Score:1)
That's enough to hold 1000 compressed 1 bit 1x1 pixel images, or 6 hours of music (provided that it's midi, or maybe a simple mod) or even 300 hefty e-books. All of which contain the letter e, repeated an ungodly number of times and nothing else. Otherwise they'd call them l-books or something, wouldn't they?
It's really amazing technology, and it's pretty cheap too! I can get you a prerelease version for $50 + s/h if you want.
Drive Integrety (Score:1)
operation.. The IBM GN series of Travelstar drives can handle 150G/2ms shocks.. Powered off it can handle 700G/1ms..
Not solid state, but getting closer...
Finally (Score:1)
Wireless SHOUTCast (Score:1)
btw: does IPv6 support multicast connectionless, unacknowledged (probably UDP) packets that a wireless content source would spew? In fact, going digital packet would pretty much obviate the need for the FCC, except as a content censor, if we went to packet and unique source addresses for radio broadcasting..
(check out Radio-Free WallaceFM http://208.201.18.9/shout/
The Rio does not skip (Score:1)
Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
300 hefty novels?? (Score:1)
Software manuals have already switched over to electronic distribution as their main medium of publication, for instance. Often the printed manuals only come as PDFs.
Secondly, I foresee a market for electronic publishing of fringe interest items that have gone out of print, especially when the cost of printing is going way up. It's just more economical for people who only want to read the stuff. I read Robert Louis Stevensons's The Silverado Squatters this way on my Pilot. For complete works of authors, the reduced shelf space would be nice, too. "Every surviving work of literature from the dawn of man to 100 A.D., on one CD"
This will all get much nicer when we get better screens, particularly on our handhelds.
Specs: (Score:1)
a href="http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl /prod/micro/170340/170spec.htm">Specs
IBM Microdrive Home
probably it should be kept spun down most of the time (and the mp3 loaded into volatile memory like the empeg). also, battery use is negligible, how much power will it take to spin this 3 cm disk and move 1 mm parts? (i wish they had better info on their pages) this is cool anyway, and it SHOULD cost around $200 for acceptance... also: the rio could support it, in a newer version, it already uses CompactFlash Type I memory, the microdrive is a CF Type II device... only 2mm width difference... (probably needs to know how much to read off of it etc.. anyway..)
sorry (Score:1)
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/prod
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hardsoft/diskdrdl/mi
Moving Parts (Score:2)
cya
The Rio does not skip (Score:1)
Any breaks in the music are due to the ripping or encoding process. That same piece of music will break in the same place, in the same way, on ANY MP3 playing hardware or software.
If you're having problems with MP3s, try a different CD ripper program. WinDAC32 has amazing success on my Sharp PCMCIA drive (where everything else screws up)
If you have problems with electronic-type sounds, try a different encoding rate or program.
Win a Rio [cjb.net] (or join the SETI Club via same link)
The Rio does not skip (Score:1)
This talk of the Rio "skipping" is bizarre.
Win a Rio [cjb.net] (or join the SETI Club via same link)
I don't understand... (Score:1)
As far as the clik drive, AFAIK they are proprietary and who knows how rugged they are, how much they cost, etc.
Moving Parts (Score:1)
300 hefty novels?? (Score:1)
whoah baby (Score:1)
Kent
Radio wont go away (Score:1)
established radio stations will miss the boat though if they do not take advantage of this new format. streaming audio seems like a given, however given the state of the web sites of the radio stations in my area, i dont expect to see any geekish innovation from them soon.
i have a formidable mp3 collection, a laptop, and a nice car stereo. i spend a lot of time in my car listening to mp3s (6g to be exact). i still flip to the radio. sometimes i'm looking for new music, sometimes im just not in the mood for setting up a playlist or listening to the ones i already have. no matter how easy or cheap mp3 players become, radio wont go away.
PDA's playing MP3's (Score:1)
Units. (Score:1)
First, I assume you meant 150 * g / 2ms. But that comes out to 75000 m^2/s^2, which is equivilent to 75000 W/kg. What are watts per kilogram? Power absorbed by the drive for each unit of its mass?
WHY can't drive manufacturers just use newtons per second?
Moving Parts (Score:1)
mp3 CDs and zip media. (Score:1)
mp3 portable machines should go in all shapes and sizes.
or as much as an ordinary pc computer can use.
many people have cd burners,
and when burning 650Mb of mp3s,
it can hold every song you like,
so you won't have to "recharge" the thing or get new meida.
a simple program would make an image out of the mp3s you desire and burn it on the cd.
same goes for iomega zip media, (or the syquest equivalent)
it's portable,
it has a large capacity,
and every pc can be conneted to one.
the only problem is they are proprietary,
but so are many other devices.
(maybe even the rio, i have no idea)
---
re-inventing the minidisc (Score:1)
It would be relly cool if portable MP3 players using the micro drive had the second IDE connector go to pins on the bottom of the device so that you could buy a docking station that you could stick a large drive in for long term storage/home use. The docking station could hook it into the stereo system and provide power to recharge it too. (something along the lines of those boom boxes that had the removeable walkman tape deck, only much cooler)
re-inventing the minidisc (Score:1)
re-inventing the minidisc (Score:1)
One problem there: the minidisc is all but "mini" when compared to the size of IBM's drive. Also keep in mind that the minidisc still requires hardware to use it (motor, read/write head, etc.), whereas IBM's drive is that small size *including* all mechanical parts.
re-inventing the minidisc (Score:1)
I'm actually not sure how much *real* data the mini-disc holds, but I was told it compresses it's music data using something like mp2 or mp3 compression.
The micro-drive uses the ide standard, which is simple, open, and free, last I checked. Minidisc is owned by Sony, isn't it? So not only does it cost media, towards Sony, which probably doesn't want to license it out because of competition with its own music industry, but also because it would compete against it's own version of a portable music device, the MD Player.
AS
Progress of technology (Score:1)
Rip out ISA and pop in USB for significant cost savings, because USB is serial and chainable. A modem does fine on USB, I think, and M$ already has a sound card/speaker set out on USB. Feed it digital data, and it will do all the processing and output.
If you want to be able to mix and play with 100 voices of sound, I don't think ISA or USB is enough, which is why there are PCI sound cards. 3d sound cards, with their additional 3d positional capability, would also seem to choke on ISA.
So it's not so much that we can't use ISA, its that a simpler, cheaper, and effective alternative exists, USB, and perhaps Firewire will replace IDE sometime in the future too, since IDE has the annoying feature of 2 devices per chain...
Don't talk about SCSI being replaced by FireWire soon, because SCSI still has a performance advantage over FireWire and IDE for a while. Plus, it's more expensive to switch SCSI->FireWire because of the fact that people have chains of 3 to 5 devices to convert, where on IDE there are only 2 devices max.
AS
moving parts suck (Score:1)
Or I would counter that silicon technology is only transitory(and a waste of effort) until we switch over to GeAs, copper, and SOI. Which, coincidentally, IBM is also working on.
Moving parts aside, the microdrive is much less sensitive to shock, due to size, is much less power hungry, due to size, and much cheaper to implement than solid state, due to current technology. It is definitely an intermediate technology, between CDs, conventional IDE drives, and solid state, in terms of cost, reliability, and size, which gives it a host of advantages(and some disadvantages)...
AS
re-inventing the minidisc (Score:1)
I haven't looked extremely hard for a MD player, since I originally saw one, thought it was too expensive, and left it alone. I guess the market has changed since.
I guess Good Guys is a place to look?
AS
CompactFlash (Score:1)
The other nice thing about CF is the digital camera generated demand; more market to drive mass-production and lower costs.
Trend here? (Score:1)
They still have ISA because they know that I still want to use my 8-bit NE1000 cards. Ok? It's no global conspiracy; they're just all in awe of me.
Off topic? Me?
Well for what it's worth, I think the IBM 170/340MB Micro drives are awesome. But only for embedded systems, and robotics... Using them as a consumer device only cheapens there coolness.
re-inventing the minidisc (Score:1)
Trend here? (Score:1)
Mine does. SB Live!'s processor does ~100 MIPS. Talking to the system @ 8MHz would hurt.
or ISDN cards. Or modem cards.
With you all the way here. What does a 56Kbps or 128Kbps card do with the speed, other than take it from the video and sound card? Modems firmly belong on the ISA bus, and I'm dubious about the need for ISA-based PnP. Are people really that incompetent about jumpers? If they are, should they even be inside their boxes?
Mike
--
dum de dum de HEAD CRASH (Score:1)
I mean sure its gonna be spun down most of the time, but imagine running on a treadmill and listening to one of these things...It goes to read the next song into memory, and bang: $200 down the drain.
300 hefty novels?? (Score:1)
antiques, collectors items, special editions signed by the author, etc. But e-books are going
to take the market over by storm within a few years (once the standards are set).
I'm sorry, but carrying around one e-book with
ALL my O'Reilly books, the Lord of the Rings, all
my Stephen King books, all my Michael Crichton books, my school textbooks, etc. is just WAY TOO APPEALING.
Not to mention downloading your local paper
from their website before you head off to school/work/play.
E-me baby!!
Trend here? (Score:1)
The processor speed doesn't necessarily determine the bandwidth needed by the device. For example, you could have a coprocessor that could accept equations, crunch on them for a bit, and then return solutions. In this case the amount of info passed between the coprocessor and the system wouldn't be very much but the coprocessor would require a lot of computational power to work.
That being said I think that the SBLive! and similar positional audio devices may require the bandwidth. It really depends on how A3D and Direct3D sound works. If the protocols something as simple as sending the sample and a position relative to the player then a ISA bus may be able to handle it.
still not enough (Score:1)
I don't understand... (Score:1)
Finally (Score:1)
dum de dum de HEAD CRASH (Score:1)
mp3 vs cd audio format (Score:1)
Trend here? (Score:1)
Moving Parts (Score:1)
Bad for Radio, blindsided... (Score:1)
The problem is (and I know this becaus I market for radio/tv stations and read the industry press) they haven't really addressed the issue yet and are certainly not looking for ways to embrace and build upon it. The recent consolidation in radio creates a huge beauracracy making quick decisions and adaptation impossible. It might be close to the time for a new radio paradigm. Anyway, Happy Easter, let's go paint some eggs, hide them, and find 'em. Man, what a cool holiday!!
I don't understand... (Score:1)
Why haven't I seen a portable MP3 player using this EXISTING technology?!
Iomega Clik Technology [iomega.com]
What I WOULD like to see... (Score:1)
then my bloody portable CD player which can run
for, oh, a few hours max... *sigh*
I wouldn't buy it.. (Score:1)
Why not put a CDROM w/ 16M in a portable case? That's over a minute of storage at 128 (and completely arbitrary, given the economies, it might be cheaer to put in a 64M sdram).
Even when the CD's skipping it'll have ample chance to retry and keep its buffer non-empty.
Then again, what I described is essentially a wearable PC with read-only FS and stripped-down memory and [probably] processor. That I'd buy. Especially if it came in fashionable colors
Why Don't Any Companys Make One Of These....? (Score:1)
mp3 vs cd audio format (Score:1)