5 ms·
The first scene releases of mp3's were in 1996[0]. It was 1997 when things got rolling, just as Winamp was released. I recall then that even new PC's couldn't
by nikcub 5y ago
The first scene releases of mp3's were in 1996[0]. It was 1997 when things got rolling, just as Winamp was released.
I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD quality and you had to downscale. We also picked which songs to download locally based on their size
Spiderbait's song "Calypso" was probably the most popular mp3 download in '97 since it was only 2.5MB and a lot of people just wanted to try this new mp3 thing everybody was talking about.
The decoder Winamp used was actually amp - developed by Tomislav Uzelac[1]. I can't remember how he dodged patent issues, but he had his name and an ask for donations in the about box of v1 iirc.
Winamp owe a lot to amp - the first version was essentially a skin + port of his library to Windows. I'm pretty certain Winamp v2 also used amp, just as it was blowing up to become the most downloaded program online.
Nullsoft and Justin were absolute legends. He wrote an AOL ad removal / blocking tool and WASTE while at AOL. I can't think of any similar startup or subsidiary today that has even close to the attitude / courage they had.
[0] https://www.mp3scene.info/releases/year/1996/ https://www.mp3scene.info/releases/year/1996/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomislav_Uzelac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomislav_Uzelac
- marcodiego 5y agoI think only the first versions of winamp used amp, it was replaced later. Interestingly, the old amp code can still be compiled and ran on modern systems with little modifications. I've did it a few months ago.
- jihadjihad 5y agoOh wow, WASTE, that brings back some memories. I hadn't heard of it until college, where everyone on campus used it to share music / videos / etc. I never knew that the history of it was linked to Nullsoft and Winamp.
- MisterTea 5y ago> I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD quality and you had to downscale. I remember pentium 90's struggling to play mp3's on Win95/98 while at uni. They would play but you couldn't do much else otherwise they would stutter. Even minimizing and maximizing the mp3 player would cause stuttering.
- raydev 5y agoMy favorite "wild west" item from this time period is nineinchnails.net. I don't know who was running the site at the time, but they were ripping and hosting mp2/mp3 files of NIN's entire discography just out in the open and free. A combination of limited hard drive space + sad dialup speeds prevented me from actually downloading the entire discog before the eventual shutdown in 98 or 99-ish.
- leviathant 5y agoNineinchnails.net was Matt Miller, not to be confused with Matt Brink (9inchnails.com) or Matt Dunphy (The NIN Hotline) of course.