Reply to post: The Minidisc was awesome!

Return of the audio format wars and other money-making scams

juice

The Minidisc was awesome!

Back then, Sony's hardware division was capable of producing some amazing and innovation technology. Unfortunately, it was instantly slapped with artificial limitations by their media divisions, who were horrified at the implications of digital copying - this were the same guys who later thought it was a good idea to hide a rootkit on legally purchased CDs.

(And later, their software division proved pretty hopeless, too - anyone who's muttered darkly about iTunes has obviously never had to deal with SonicStage!

Still, my first Minidisc player (a single-speed Sharp model) served me well as I chugged across the country on the train, back in my student days - and when I passed it onto a friend, it lasted a good few years longer.

My final Minidisc model was a Longplay Sony model (possibly the MZ-R500 variant, looking at Google), which crammed up to 320 minutes onto each disc - and in LP4 mode, managed a frankly astonishing 48 hours playback from a *single* AA battery[*]

That'un is still in a drawer somewhere, along with a load of discs. I may have to dig it out at some point, to see how much my taste in music has changed in the last 20 years ;)

[*] All the more amazing when you consider it used spinning magneto-optical media; I don't think there's any modern hardware which can come close, even with advances in CPU and battery technology!

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