On this day, 22 years ago, the #Rockbox project started, co-founded by me. We wrote an open source firmware for mp3 players. On its 10 year anniversary 2011, I wrote this:
when we had get-togethers of #rockbox hackers, we did these (silly) towers of devices that could run Rockbox. Look at this beautiful example featuring 78 mp3 players.
@err_mus also, the backstory of how the reverse engineering of the first ipod that then eventually ran Rockbox is super awesome. A work of art and patience of steel.
@bagder My first (and only, because smartphones) MP3 player was a SanDisk Sansa Fuse, and I ran Rockbox on it. I don’t recall whether I was after any specific features vs. the vendor software, or if it was just because I was starting to get interested in Linux and FOSS.
@bagder Rockbox was definitely life-changing software for me. I was so proud when I first managed to get it installed, at the age of 10 if that. I got a Sansa Clip Plus for about $25, an affordable price, even at that age, and Rockbox made it talk. Similar devices directly aimed at the blind marked are more expensive at least by an order of magnitude. It has served me well for years, up until 2016 or so, when I finally bit the bullet and switched over to listening on a smartphone full time. I definitely have very fond memories of generating audiobooks on my computer with text-to-speech software to play them later on the Sansa, though.
@bagder hah I recently found my Sansa Player in a drawer, running #Rockbox and thought of the amazing project and the community and about the remaining handful of hardware it actually didn't run on. 🥰
@bagder i'm a huge fan. i'm one of the people who have a dedicated music player. i keep it in my shirt pocket. as such it's a requirement all my shirts have a left pocket, even my tshirts, which is my uniform nowadays.
i currently have 15 or more devices running rockbox.
if it isn't running rockbox, it aint going in my shirt pocket!
@amazing_snacks@sushee the original author of the Archos firmware used to say he created Rockbox by making the original firmware so bad it triggered us to make an alternative =)
@bagder cool. btw there's few if any good mp3 players today. lately i tried a few and they broke or revealed bugs, e.g. repeated indexing for no reason, going into a deadlock even if i remove the battery. seems there's only the android ones, but i don't want android tbh
@bagder wow I had no idea you were a part of Rockbox! I used to look at it with mild envy, saddened that nothing I could get my hands on was capable of running it :D
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