3 ms·

It did ruin the minidisc, when Sony decided you couldn't get digital data from the disc.

by megablast 7y ago

agumonkey 7y ago
there's an alternate universe where MiniDisc replaced floppies in the early 90s and became the main storage format.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  90mm Magneto-Optical ("MO") was a lot closer to being that future - it was the same tech as MiniDisc, but openly licensed, and actually had really good traction in Japan (on par with Zip drives in the west). 600 MB on a disc the size of a floppy, with random-access read and write. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive
- bluedino 7y ago
  Sony actually relased a slightly different MiniDisc for data storage with computers. https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/1030462986027065345 https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/10304629860270653...
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    ohhh 1993.. I had no idea. I remember late 90s MD-data
jmiserez 7y ago
IIRC one of the reasons was that the MiniDisc used lossy compression (ATRAC) to store audio onto the disc. So you couldn't actually store music digitally onto it, at least not the amount advertised. This was before MP3 was widespread, I remember people were upset that when they bought MiniDiscs they only got a lossy copy. Later revisions added higher capacity and digital storage but it was too little too late. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc
- makomk 7y ago
  The thing is that newer MiniDisc players did offer the ability to load tracks digitally from a PC, but it was gratuitously locked down. Not only was there no way to transfer music in the other direction, there was no way to load tracks compressed with the highest quality level either - the only way to take full advantage of MiniDisc's audio quality was to send uncompressed audio data and let the device compress it, and it was barely faster than recording something on there in real time.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Yep - to protect it’s precious ATRAC codec from ending up on filthy unbaptised consumer PCs. Only to see mp3 eat the world.

It did ruin the minidisc, when Sony decided you couldn't get digital data from the disc.

agumonkey 7y ago

there's an alternate universe where MiniDisc replaced floppies in the early 90s and became the main storage format.

kalleboo 7y ago
90mm Magneto-Optical ("MO") was a lot closer to being that future - it was the same tech as MiniDisc, but openly licensed, and actually had really good traction in Japan (on par with Zip drives in the west). 600 MB on a disc the size of a floppy, with random-access read and write. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive
bluedino 7y ago
Sony actually relased a slightly different MiniDisc for data storage with computers. https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/1030462986027065345 https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/10304629860270653...
- agumonkey 7y ago
  ohhh 1993.. I had no idea. I remember late 90s MD-data

jmiserez 7y ago

IIRC one of the reasons was that the MiniDisc used lossy compression (ATRAC) to store audio onto the disc. So you couldn't actually store music digitally onto it, at least not the amount advertised. This was before MP3 was widespread, I remember people were upset that when they bought MiniDiscs they only got a lossy copy. Later revisions added higher capacity and digital storage but it was too little too late. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc

makomk 7y ago
The thing is that newer MiniDisc players did offer the ability to load tracks digitally from a PC, but it was gratuitously locked down. Not only was there no way to transfer music in the other direction, there was no way to load tracks compressed with the highest quality level either - the only way to take full advantage of MiniDisc's audio quality was to send uncompressed audio data and let the device compress it, and it was barely faster than recording something on there in real time.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Yep - to protect it’s precious ATRAC codec from ending up on filthy unbaptised consumer PCs. Only to see mp3 eat the world.