8 ms·

I was trying to explain this to someone ~10 years younger than me the other day. I was telling them about how, when I was in high school (late 90s) I had a port

I was trying to explain this to someone ~10 years younger than me the other day. I was telling them about how, when I was in high school (late 90s) I had a portable minidisc player/recorder. In so many ways, listening to music on that device was better than listening to it on Spotfiy + smartphone, even despite the obvious advantages. Something about holding music in your hands, feeling a drive seek the next track, pressing physical buttons to control playback -- it all feels terrific, and I didn't realize until this conversation that there's a whole generation who hasn't experienced that. BTW those minidisc players still go for $200-400 on ebay!

agumonkey 10y ago
MD were such a beautiful thing. I still wonder what would have been if Sony decided to drop it as an open storage medium. Considering it was released in 1992 ... could you imagine. There's something I recently felt deep and weird about. The society is a double rotating system. We live, we want to solve problems, the solutions become a new ground replacing the past, not solving it. When I look at old tech (big hifi tuner, vu meters, etc), I still deeply love it. The electro mechanical beauty is still there. Same for video games, or old software (I love win3.1 and 95 to bits, if I could patch the flawed core without changing the UX of that period I'd do it...). Without the commercial need to appeal money that fueled future versions like XP or Vista. I saw things like the pico8 project, which gives a somehow modern hardware but with 8bit mindset: low res, 256 colors. People made damn beautiful games out of it. Really cool animations, gameplay, design. No need for a PS4 pro. My new pleasure is tweaking old platforms to give them "modern" day usage. Like retrofitting BT in a car radio. Or modding an old HP calc (longer battery, usb).
- unimpressive 10y ago
  >Without the commercial need to appeal money that fueled future versions like XP or Vista. This is pure nostalgia. Bill Gates has always been about the money from day one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists Bill Gates largely made his fortune by creating an operating system that OEM's would want to ship with their computer. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but Windows 3.1 and 95 were absolutely made for and to attract money.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Yeah it wasn't altruism, I meant commercial interests forces good but old to be replaced by new for the sake of new; you have to have something to pitch to the customers.
- megablast 10y ago
  > MD were such a beautiful thing. I still wonder what would have been if Sony decided to drop it as an open storage medium. Considering it was released in 1992 ... could you imagine. Sony messed it up when they bought a movie and music studio, and started to hobble their own devices. The MD was awesome, worked for 40 hours on one battery, could to digital recording and replaying. Damn you sony.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    The content side of things made them weird, but I can't really blame them not to foresee the use of a 140MB optical disk when the average consumer used floppy disks. It might be two different parts of their brains.
zitterbewegung 10y ago
I think that if you made an interface to Spotify in your hands with physical buttons you would get an experience that would be 50% there.
marcoperaza 10y ago
I find that the unlimited and instant choice I get with Spotify make me enjoy the music less. There are many songs that I constantly pass over on Spotify but am absolutely delighted to hear on the FM radio.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Happy to hear that I'm not the only FM-ist. I also love "FM quality" ... twice I bought an album after loving it on radio, and was disappointed because the clear mix changed the feel of the songs. Lastly, remember how it felt to listen to a tape. You didn't want to skip, so you just let the music play and go with the flow. All of this is the paradox of choice and free will. We think we want ability to do exactly all we want when we want but it turns out it's not so clear cut.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

agumonkey 10y ago

MD were such a beautiful thing. I still wonder what would have been if Sony decided to drop it as an open storage medium. Considering it was released in 1992 ... could you imagine. There's something I recently felt deep and weird about. The society is a double rotating system. We live, we want to solve problems, the solutions become a new ground replacing the past, not solving it. When I look at old tech (big hifi tuner, vu meters, etc), I still deeply love it. The electro mechanical beauty is still there. Same for video games, or old software (I love win3.1 and 95 to bits, if I could patch the flawed core without changing the UX of that period I'd do it...). Without the commercial need to appeal money that fueled future versions like XP or Vista. I saw things like the pico8 project, which gives a somehow modern hardware but with 8bit mindset: low res, 256 colors. People made damn beautiful games out of it. Really cool animations, gameplay, design. No need for a PS4 pro. My new pleasure is tweaking old platforms to give them "modern" day usage. Like retrofitting BT in a car radio. Or modding an old HP calc (longer battery, usb).

unimpressive 10y ago
>Without the commercial need to appeal money that fueled future versions like XP or Vista. This is pure nostalgia. Bill Gates has always been about the money from day one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists Bill Gates largely made his fortune by creating an operating system that OEM's would want to ship with their computer. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but Windows 3.1 and 95 were absolutely made for and to attract money.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Yeah it wasn't altruism, I meant commercial interests forces good but old to be replaced by new for the sake of new; you have to have something to pitch to the customers.
megablast 10y ago
> MD were such a beautiful thing. I still wonder what would have been if Sony decided to drop it as an open storage medium. Considering it was released in 1992 ... could you imagine. Sony messed it up when they bought a movie and music studio, and started to hobble their own devices. The MD was awesome, worked for 40 hours on one battery, could to digital recording and replaying. Damn you sony.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  The content side of things made them weird, but I can't really blame them not to foresee the use of a 140MB optical disk when the average consumer used floppy disks. It might be two different parts of their brains.

zitterbewegung 10y ago

I think that if you made an interface to Spotify in your hands with physical buttons you would get an experience that would be 50% there.

marcoperaza 10y ago

I find that the unlimited and instant choice I get with Spotify make me enjoy the music less. There are many songs that I constantly pass over on Spotify but am absolutely delighted to hear on the FM radio.

agumonkey 10y ago
Happy to hear that I'm not the only FM-ist. I also love "FM quality" ... twice I bought an album after loving it on radio, and was disappointed because the clear mix changed the feel of the songs. Lastly, remember how it felt to listen to a tape. You didn't want to skip, so you just let the music play and go with the flow. All of this is the paradox of choice and free will. We think we want ability to do exactly all we want when we want but it turns out it's not so clear cut.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]