11 ms·

Walkmp3rson is an MP3 player like Sony never made

67 points by rcarmo 4y ago

TillE 4y ago
What a cool little project. It occurs to me that you could also make the opposite: a cheap portable audio recorder with a 3.5mm jack, which has a number of practical uses. I think that's doable with a chip like the TI AIC3104.
- freetanga 4y ago
  You mean like the digital journalist recorders?
throwaway892238 4y ago
This is what a cassette walkman would look like if you described it to an alien.
- threads2 4y ago
  Yeah, it sure is ugly!
marcodiego 4y ago
I've got an idea! I remember when CD's were becoming common, most car stereos didn't have a CD player. There was a kludge: "fake" tape which was actually a recorder head on a tape chassis connected to a CD player which transferred the CD player output to the cassette player: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tape_adapter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tape_adapter Now, my idea: a tape chassis, with a recorder head, with a built in battery and SD card connector. It could play MP3's directly to the recorder head and I could use old cassette players to play MP3's! Now, some possibilities: if it is efficient enough, it could be powered by the cassette player motor. No need to re-charge! Another possibility: it could sense the direction and speed of the motor and use it as a UI to play, stop and fast forward/backward; no need of any button!
- bobsmooth 4y ago
  Already exists https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000181019563.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000181019563.html
  - freeqaz 4y ago
    That requires a phone (Bluetooth) and the reviews say it requires charging (not low power). Close, but not quite there!
    - goosedragons 4y ago
      They used to exist at least. There's not really a way to get around needing some sort of power. https://usb.brando.com/usb-cassette-mp3-player_p01122c035d15.html https://usb.brando.com/usb-cassette-mp3-player_p01122c035d15...
      - planede 4y ago
        How much power does it need? Could the winding mechanism provide the required power? Got to look up some specs on the maximum torque provided by the winding mechanism and the turning speed.
        squarefoot 4y ago
        The capstan is where the maximum torque is, although the very slow rotation would need some gears in order to extract some power from a small dynamo; the tape rolls torque is very limited on purpose to barely keep the tape in tension without breaking it, and they would be unusable for this purpose. Also it wouldn't be easy to keep something in contact with the capstan to extract its energy, since the capstan/pinch-roller pair has been designed to work with tape, not pulleys or gears. The hardest problem is hence mechanical; a repurposed small stepper motor could work great as generator, and the electronics involved beyond the standard Lithium charging chip would be minimal. But adding the necessary gearbox to this device would likely raise significantly the cost of production, which is probably the reason we didn't see it yet.
ada1981 4y ago
This would be cooler if you could somehow convert the MP3s To a wave and store then on 90min magnetic cassette tapes and then you could play those.
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  That would give you relatively little playtime. A standard 90 minute tape cannot hold all that much binary data.
  - whiskeytuesday 4y ago
    Maybe you could come up with some kind of analog encoding of the original audio levels and store that on the tape instead.
    - ada1981 4y ago
      Yes this would be incredible. You get it.
  - ada1981 4y ago
    Analog.
- magic_hamster 4y ago
  Not sure why you'd want something like this. Imagine writing a book on paper, but instead of letters you're writing the binary representation of each letter. Wouldn't it be easier and more efficient to just use the paper as intended? Just use good metal tapes, you'd be surprised with the quality (read: hard pressed to notice it's a tape). Plus, whatever circuitry you're using gives analog sound an extra bit of personality (though this isn't always for the best).
  - schwartzworld 4y ago
    > Just use good metal tapes Nobody manufactures type 2 tapes anymore. You basically have to find dead stock.
wirthjason 4y ago
The Walkman was cool, I had several. Then the Discman. But the coolest of all was MiniDisc—-super slim, ultra portable, indestructible media, no skipping. It was popular in Japan but niche technology in the US. I really wish it caught on. One of my favorites features was the inline stick remote with an LCD display screen. Put the player in your pocket and clip the remote to your shirt, bag, etc. with full controls and a display of the current track.
- jagged-chisel 4y ago
  The artificial limitations around digital music kept me from being interested in minidisc. Things that made sense were blocked or intentionally slowed. Too expensive for those kinds of headaches.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  The MiniDisc didn't make any sense if you were invested in CDs already. CDs have higher capacity, and 16-bit 44.1kHz sampling, which is much better than MD. MDs had more durable media, sure, but this means you have buy 2 copies of all the music you want, so you can play it both in your portable player and at home on your real stereo system. Cheaper and easier to just use a portable CD player, or dub onto cassette, or later, burn a copy onto CD-R. And CD didn't have any mechanism to prevent copying.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    MiniDisc only real flaw was that it was a Sony format. The copy limitations, issues with the record labels, limited third party support, excessive price outside of Japan etc all come from there. Otherwise outside of sampling rate (MD were ATRAC only at first), the points you raise were not an issue if you bought into the ecosystem: buying music directly in MD, playing it on your portable player and sticking it in your Sony compo would be fine. Buying blank MDs and recording, copying etc. on them was mostly fine, all of that on a format way more sturdier, stable, and convenient than CDs. I think CDs would have "died" and get replaced with MDs if it wasn't for Sony being themselves and screwing it up.
userbinator 4y ago
That hardware is very overpowered for what it does, but I guess cheap enough. With that screen, it's probably capable of playing back video too.
mkoryak 4y ago
I wanted to see the tape unwind from one side and wind on the other as it played. Maybe it does this but slowly. If not, it's an opportunity lost.
svnpenn 4y ago
what are the dimensions? it looks pretty big
ofrzeta 4y ago
I tried something similar, i.e. MP3 playback from SD card on a "small board". Because I am an electronics noob progress is slow. There's a lot to consider like SPI multiplexing when you run a display and the SD card adapter over SPI (that display/SD combo in the "tape player" project is quite interesting). First I went with some lm386 audio amp until I learned it's a lot easier with an I2S amp such as it is used in Walkm3person. After some semi-successful attempts with a Metro M4 Express (samd51 chip) I have now switched to ESP8266 (built-in Wifi opposed to the M4). It never occurred to me that the Raspberry Pico is powerful enough for MP3 playback.
112233 4y ago
Where can I buy a thing that works in a similar way? I'd like to give it to an elderly person to listen to audiobooks: - one easily pressed button resumes playback from last position in last played track - one easily pressed button turns off - physical volume knob that would be the minimum, but you get the idea. I cannot find a single such device: - either the player does not remember track position (that is normal for music) - or it is a touchscreen android device with an app Does such thing even exist? Can it be reasonably DIYed?
- DHPersonal 4y ago
  The Playaway is a one-book audiobook player, which is great for easy use but pretty expensive for avid readers. https://www.playaway.com/ https://www.playaway.com/
- captn3m0 4y ago
  A few DIY projects in the space that use a Raspberry Pi: - http://clemens.name/the-one-button-audiobook-player/ http://clemens.name/the-one-button-audiobook-player/ (One book, one button) - https://knoever.github.io/audioplayer-for-blind-people/ https://knoever.github.io/audioplayer-for-blind-people/ (IR based control, TTS output for feedback) - https://gist.github.com/wkjagt/814b3f62ea03c7b1a765 https://gist.github.com/wkjagt/814b3f62ea03c7b1a765 (5 Buttons, RFID tags to pick which slot to read). Blog Post with more details: https://web.archive.org/web/20210302193620/http://willemvanderjagt.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210302193620/http://willemvand..., Source Code: https://github.com/wkjagt/BookPlayer https://github.com/wkjagt/BookPlayer - https://circuitdigest.com/project/raspberry-pi-talking-book-player https://circuitdigest.com/project/raspberry-pi-talking-book-... (DAISY standard, TTS, USB Numpad for input)
yellowapple 4y ago
The RP2040 is proving to be a surprisingly versatile chip. The fact that Raspberry Pi Picos and similar RP2040-based boards are relatively plentiful helps, too.
sh4un 4y ago

67 points by rcarmo 4y ago

What a cool little project. It occurs to me that you could also make the opposite: a cheap portable audio recorder with a 3.5mm jack, which has a number of practical uses. I think that's doable with a chip like the TI AIC3104.

freetanga 4y ago
You mean like the digital journalist recorders?

throwaway892238 4y ago

This is what a cassette walkman would look like if you described it to an alien.

threads2 4y ago
Yeah, it sure is ugly!

marcodiego 4y ago

I've got an idea! I remember when CD's were becoming common, most car stereos didn't have a CD player. There was a kludge: "fake" tape which was actually a recorder head on a tape chassis connected to a CD player which transferred the CD player output to the cassette player: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tape_adapter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tape_adapter Now, my idea: a tape chassis, with a recorder head, with a built in battery and SD card connector. It could play MP3's directly to the recorder head and I could use old cassette players to play MP3's! Now, some possibilities: if it is efficient enough, it could be powered by the cassette player motor. No need to re-charge! Another possibility: it could sense the direction and speed of the motor and use it as a UI to play, stop and fast forward/backward; no need of any button!

bobsmooth 4y ago
Already exists https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000181019563.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000181019563.html
- freeqaz 4y ago
  That requires a phone (Bluetooth) and the reviews say it requires charging (not low power). Close, but not quite there!
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    They used to exist at least. There's not really a way to get around needing some sort of power. https://usb.brando.com/usb-cassette-mp3-player_p01122c035d15.html https://usb.brando.com/usb-cassette-mp3-player_p01122c035d15...
    - planede 4y ago
      How much power does it need? Could the winding mechanism provide the required power? Got to look up some specs on the maximum torque provided by the winding mechanism and the turning speed.
      - squarefoot 4y ago
        The capstan is where the maximum torque is, although the very slow rotation would need some gears in order to extract some power from a small dynamo; the tape rolls torque is very limited on purpose to barely keep the tape in tension without breaking it, and they would be unusable for this purpose. Also it wouldn't be easy to keep something in contact with the capstan to extract its energy, since the capstan/pinch-roller pair has been designed to work with tape, not pulleys or gears. The hardest problem is hence mechanical; a repurposed small stepper motor could work great as generator, and the electronics involved beyond the standard Lithium charging chip would be minimal. But adding the necessary gearbox to this device would likely raise significantly the cost of production, which is probably the reason we didn't see it yet.

ada1981 4y ago

This would be cooler if you could somehow convert the MP3s To a wave and store then on 90min magnetic cassette tapes and then you could play those.

selfhoster11 4y ago
That would give you relatively little playtime. A standard 90 minute tape cannot hold all that much binary data.
- whiskeytuesday 4y ago
  Maybe you could come up with some kind of analog encoding of the original audio levels and store that on the tape instead.
  - ada1981 4y ago
    Yes this would be incredible. You get it.
- ada1981 4y ago
  Analog.
magic_hamster 4y ago
Not sure why you'd want something like this. Imagine writing a book on paper, but instead of letters you're writing the binary representation of each letter. Wouldn't it be easier and more efficient to just use the paper as intended? Just use good metal tapes, you'd be surprised with the quality (read: hard pressed to notice it's a tape). Plus, whatever circuitry you're using gives analog sound an extra bit of personality (though this isn't always for the best).
- schwartzworld 4y ago
  > Just use good metal tapes Nobody manufactures type 2 tapes anymore. You basically have to find dead stock.

wirthjason 4y ago

The Walkman was cool, I had several. Then the Discman. But the coolest of all was MiniDisc—-super slim, ultra portable, indestructible media, no skipping. It was popular in Japan but niche technology in the US. I really wish it caught on. One of my favorites features was the inline stick remote with an LCD display screen. Put the player in your pocket and clip the remote to your shirt, bag, etc. with full controls and a display of the current track.

jagged-chisel 4y ago
The artificial limitations around digital music kept me from being interested in minidisc. Things that made sense were blocked or intentionally slowed. Too expensive for those kinds of headaches.
midoridensha 4y ago
The MiniDisc didn't make any sense if you were invested in CDs already. CDs have higher capacity, and 16-bit 44.1kHz sampling, which is much better than MD. MDs had more durable media, sure, but this means you have buy 2 copies of all the music you want, so you can play it both in your portable player and at home on your real stereo system. Cheaper and easier to just use a portable CD player, or dub onto cassette, or later, burn a copy onto CD-R. And CD didn't have any mechanism to prevent copying.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  MiniDisc only real flaw was that it was a Sony format. The copy limitations, issues with the record labels, limited third party support, excessive price outside of Japan etc all come from there. Otherwise outside of sampling rate (MD were ATRAC only at first), the points you raise were not an issue if you bought into the ecosystem: buying music directly in MD, playing it on your portable player and sticking it in your Sony compo would be fine. Buying blank MDs and recording, copying etc. on them was mostly fine, all of that on a format way more sturdier, stable, and convenient than CDs. I think CDs would have "died" and get replaced with MDs if it wasn't for Sony being themselves and screwing it up.

userbinator 4y ago

That hardware is very overpowered for what it does, but I guess cheap enough. With that screen, it's probably capable of playing back video too.

mkoryak 4y ago

I wanted to see the tape unwind from one side and wind on the other as it played. Maybe it does this but slowly. If not, it's an opportunity lost.

svnpenn 4y ago

what are the dimensions? it looks pretty big

ofrzeta 4y ago

I tried something similar, i.e. MP3 playback from SD card on a "small board". Because I am an electronics noob progress is slow. There's a lot to consider like SPI multiplexing when you run a display and the SD card adapter over SPI (that display/SD combo in the "tape player" project is quite interesting). First I went with some lm386 audio amp until I learned it's a lot easier with an I2S amp such as it is used in Walkm3person. After some semi-successful attempts with a Metro M4 Express (samd51 chip) I have now switched to ESP8266 (built-in Wifi opposed to the M4). It never occurred to me that the Raspberry Pico is powerful enough for MP3 playback.

112233 4y ago

Where can I buy a thing that works in a similar way? I'd like to give it to an elderly person to listen to audiobooks: - one easily pressed button resumes playback from last position in last played track - one easily pressed button turns off - physical volume knob that would be the minimum, but you get the idea. I cannot find a single such device: - either the player does not remember track position (that is normal for music) - or it is a touchscreen android device with an app Does such thing even exist? Can it be reasonably DIYed?

DHPersonal 4y ago
The Playaway is a one-book audiobook player, which is great for easy use but pretty expensive for avid readers. https://www.playaway.com/ https://www.playaway.com/
captn3m0 4y ago
A few DIY projects in the space that use a Raspberry Pi: - http://clemens.name/the-one-button-audiobook-player/ http://clemens.name/the-one-button-audiobook-player/ (One book, one button) - https://knoever.github.io/audioplayer-for-blind-people/ https://knoever.github.io/audioplayer-for-blind-people/ (IR based control, TTS output for feedback) - https://gist.github.com/wkjagt/814b3f62ea03c7b1a765 https://gist.github.com/wkjagt/814b3f62ea03c7b1a765 (5 Buttons, RFID tags to pick which slot to read). Blog Post with more details: https://web.archive.org/web/20210302193620/http://willemvanderjagt.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210302193620/http://willemvand..., Source Code: https://github.com/wkjagt/BookPlayer https://github.com/wkjagt/BookPlayer - https://circuitdigest.com/project/raspberry-pi-talking-book-player https://circuitdigest.com/project/raspberry-pi-talking-book-... (DAISY standard, TTS, USB Numpad for input)

yellowapple 4y ago

The RP2040 is proving to be a surprisingly versatile chip. The fact that Raspberry Pi Picos and similar RP2040-based boards are relatively plentiful helps, too.

sh4un 4y ago