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Seven years ago, I landed a fairly trivial job with a temp agency, and we were tasked with plowing through document archives and collating them all for the scan
by ButlerianJihad 4mo ago
Seven years ago, I landed a fairly trivial job with a temp agency, and we were tasked with plowing through document archives and collating them all for the scanning team. Our client was a huge company, and though none of us were sworn to secrecy or anything formal, I figured I would do them a solid, and refrain from bringing in any device with a camera, microphone, or transmitter. At the time, this was possible because I didn't rely 100% on my smartphone for transportation and everything else...
So I delved into the fascinating and still-extant world of standalone MP3 players. I selected a SanDisk Clip Jam, and it had like 8GiB onboard, an sdcard slot of course, an FM radio receiver, and really cool firmware. It was very simple, robust, extremely light, compact and portable. It was the size of a matchbox and it could clip onto your sleeve or belt, or whatever.
And it met all the requirements. It had no BT, no WiFi, no sensors of any kind, and it did that job very well of music playback, however I found it. And it could indeed store arbitrary files, so being the kind of hacker I am, I stashed a copy of my password manager encrypted database, plus a full install MSI of the application. And I included some README.txt that would indicate who owned this thing and how to return it, if lost.
I really miss that thing for its elegant simplicity. With the Swiss Army Knife nature of smartphones, I still long for the specialization and compartmented functionality of separate devices.
- jcft2 4mo agoThe original iPod shuffle was essentially a USB stick with an audio port and some buttons, and I used it in just the same way as this. I think it was only £20 or £30 in price, a great product.
- dofm 4mo agoThe original Shuffle really was excellent. Amazing audio quality for the time, about as much UI as you needed for a day or two's music, good battery life, and a configurable amount of file storage space if you needed it. And it even managed to look a sort of abstract cool. Really pure product design.
- ButlerianJihad 4mo agoShuffle and iPods undoubtedly primed consumers and the market for the iPhones to come!
- piltdownman 4mo agoThere are some fantastic hi-fidelity audio players coming out of China the last few years that are basically modern homages to the SanDisk Clip concept https://hiendportable.com/xduoo-x2s-english-review/ https://hiendportable.com/xduoo-x2s-english-review/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalAudioPlayer/comments/1rm7fj8/ruizu_x68_lg_v60_k_bear_dumpling_my_favourite/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalAudioPlayer/comments/1rm7fj8...