I‘ve been through the „I‘ll just use it as it comes from the factory“ -> „let me tweak every little thing about this and take it as far as I can“ -> ... cycle more times and with more devices than I care to admit.
This was that moment with my old 30GB iPod, thanks for the trip down memory lane!
This is precisely why I went with the Sansa Clips back in the day. They were inexpensive enough to replace easily if one broke, and RockBox gave them a lot more life. I still have a few of them laying around but haven't been used much anymore due to using streaming services.
I think I picked up my first Sansa Clip+ new for £15, and my second one (just after they were discontinued) for about £35. I imagine it's gone up again since then!
I fondly remember the days of loading this on my 4th gen iPod, having access to games and such.
I think this sort of behavior should be embraced by manufacturers, but I get it; everything needs its own app store these days for a continuous stream of revenue.
I remember loading Rockbox on a Archos Jukebox back in the early 2000's[0] as being one of my first real exposures to using open source software. It was glorious, thanks for the hard work!
At the time it was an exciting experience to replace the default firmware with Rockbox. There was some danger involved as there was the small potential of bricking the hardware. I was so nervous, because at the time I was too young to afford replacing hardware. It went smoothly and paid off.
It was instructive in my eventual switch to Linux.
Exact same thing here. One could actually interact with the community very easily, the information was well organized and they made changes in the code visible on the front page of their website. I had other players afterwards, but since then it was always a requirement that it can run RockBox. I loved it especially for its playlist management. Thanks RockBox team!
Yep. Had an early 2000(s) Jukebox, 10 GB I think, that I got on clearance at Target. I loved that thing and used it for several years. Being into open source, I discovered Rockbox and installed it. I was already using Linux. In fact, Linux compatibility was foremost on my mind (in those days) when looking at buying any hardware.
I especially liked Archos earphones that hooked over the ears and wrapped around the back of the neck. I had to order multiple sets of those earphones separately.
Alas, all things come to an end. It was replaced with an Archos 504 audio/video player with 80 GB. That was so cool too. I had to learn my ffmpeg settings to convert videos to play on it.
Next, I figured out the format, and technique to put videos onto my flip phone (before smartphones). Cool, neato, but capacity was limited.
As a student I learned C and how OSS projects work through hacking Rockbox to add features to my iRiver H320. Fond memories and a very valuable learning experience.
Oh, I have fond memories of the H320 (it was released right around the time of the click-wheel iPod with the grayscale screen). I could watch movies on my portable music player in colour! My friends' minds were blown.
I still have my H320, though I haven't powered it on in years. I even replaced the battery (with an iPod battery, with the wires swapped on the connector), and I replaced the hard drive with a 30GB model. I also got some accessories for it: a dock for your desk, and also a remote control. It was great for listening to music on airplanes.
I'm planning to try selling it on Ebay now, since I just use my phone now.
That brings back memories! Installing Rockbox, switching the battery… I also found out later that you could get a ATA-to-CF Adapter and basically switch it to an SSD.
The great thing about the Iriver H340 (I had the 40 GB version) was that it could play MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. Also, everyone was running around with iPod with a few GB. I was laughing my ass off. RockBox was a little bit more friendly on the battery. I still use the USB OTG cable which came with my Iriver H340 (I gave the device itself away in 2008).
I really wish I had more of the know how to make a Kickstarter/Crowd Supply for this. I imagine an mp3 player with native Rockbox support would be very popular, especially in the form factor of an iPod and/or a Sansa Clip.
I'd love to see this too and would be interested in funding it. I know that stand-alone mp3 players are a niche now that everyone carries a far more powerful phone. But there has to be enough support to make an open source Clip-like device profitable or at least break-even after costs.
The hardware that ran early Clips, IPod shuffles, and other small players existed 15 years ago. A dozen Chinese manufacturers still sell small players, which now are about the only option left, but they skimp on quality components like batteries and decent software.
There are a bunch of niche ones still, they either go way low end or way high end. I have a FiiO X5 for my "regular" mp3 player and a Sansa Clip Sport for my workout one.
Sadly, I work a daytime job and don't really have the time or will to actually capitalize on this. I do think that'd be a great way for Rockbox to fund themselves though. Make a Kickstarter with Rockbox officially supporting it, and the profits could go to the upkeep of rockbox.
I've looked at the FiiO lineup and they do seem like some really sweet hardware, though more geared for the audiophile.
But like you said, they're geared towards either the high end like FiiO or the very very lowend (i.e. third world countries where smartphones are only beginning to become ubiquitous in the last few years).
I have a Gen 2, and there are some firmware warts, but it works reasonably well. Sadly, their new offerings all use Android, so now I have all of the hassles of a Phone (spying, out of date, etc.) in my mp3 player!
I just want a simple self contained mp3 player. If mine breaks, I think my next one will be an iPod loaded with Rockbox.
now that everyone carries a far more powerful phone
Power is hardly relevant in this day and age, as any device with a decent firmware should be able to handle a ton of files and formats (this wasn't always the case, hence the need for rockbox).
Smart phones have versatility, but you sacrifice a lot on the music side. The audio hardware within the smartphone isn't as good, and it took a lot of years until there was an android player that had the bare minimum of features required by an audio enthusiast, namely lossless support (flac), replay gain, and gapless playback. Additionally, there are now players that run android and have all the "fruit", so the benefits are dimished.
But don't overlook the versatility of a standalone player, because relatively cheap devices like the Fiio X3 II that I am still running have other advantages compared to phone. It supports big sd cards (wasn't always a given on smart phones), has long battery life, has physical buttons (so can be operated without removing from pocket), and also functions as a USB DAC. So, lots of wins there.
There have been a number of attempts at this over the years with Rockbox (not sure about recent years though as I no longer hang out in the dev channel on freenode). All of them came to naught eventually though.
A few years ago I had the itch to do this and got as far as buying a hardware development kit one of the NXP LCP chips. They're low power ARM CPUs available in LQFP form (so theoretically hand-solderable) and it should be not hard to port Rockbox to it.
I got overwhelmed at the prospect of starting the CAD schematic and layout for the project (I've done simple microcontroller boards in Eagle, but never one this complex). The daunting task was wiring up all the data and address lines for 2x large RAM chips and 2x Flash chips, and my ADHD kicked in, plus frustration at not being able to use programmer abstractions to do circuit CAD. I also kept not finding the time to port Rockbox on the hardware development kit.
Side note: there's giant hole in the market offerings for hobbyist single board computers. You have microcontrollers with KB's of RAM, and things like the Raspberry Pi with GB's of RAM, but there's nothing with ~16 MB of RAM and a low power 32-bit processor. The chips exist, just no one has created a cheap & compact hobbyist board (i.e. not a hw dev kit).
> Side note: there's giant hole in the market offerings for hobbyist single board computers.
ST's STM32 Discovery boards [1] fit that bill reasonably well. They're inexpensive (many under $20, most under $100), supported by an open toolchain (GCC / GDB / OpenOCD), and provide a wide variety of peripherals. Most parts don't have more than 1 or 2 MB of on-chip SRAM, but a decent number of their boards have 8 or 16 MB of external SDRAM.
Remember using it a lot in mid 2000s. On iPod Mini and the HP Player. Also Sansa.
IIRC , on iPod it let you play more codecs and then there were a few games thrown in.
Loved it and that is what switched on my "change the native firmware" mode. Before this I did not know it could be done. I also realized how OEM hobble the hardware with restrictive firmware.
Now I try not to buy Hardware (phones, routers etc) that can't be flashed with custom firmware.
I had both an Archos and a Cowon MP3 player back in Middle/High School that I loaded Rockbox onto one of (can't remember which). I remember being able to play Doom, watch pirated Family Guy, and listen to my music all on one device and thinking this was the pinnacle of technology.
I used to run this on a Sansa Clip+. It was an amazing combination: great audio quality, expandable storage via microSD, playback of a huge array of formats natively, it ran DOOM, and it only costed around $40 when it was new.
Now I just use my phone and streaming, but I sort of miss that era.
I just picked up another Sansa Clip Zip, I tend to lose them or have them stolen, on the last one the buttons wore out due to playing Rockblox too much! Still my favorite media player with Rockbox.
I had done an early port of NSF, SPC, and ADX players back when I had an iPod Photo, though I think the NSF one was redone since. I also did some work on a text-only wikipedia viewer that was fun to have, though never really shippable: https://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/4755
Haha, according to Amazon, I went through 10 clips in the last 10 years. They were the perfect music player for the gym or anywhere else you didn't want to use a bulky and far more expensive phone.
That being said, about 3-4 years ago the quality really began to decline on the Clip models - not sure if they just changed their manufacturing place or what, but a lot of us fans were disappointed.
There really are no good options anymore for a standalone small MP3 player. You've got bulky Iphones and Android, expensive IPads (the Shuffle was a good option 'till it was discontinued) and dozens off terrible Chinese knockoffs with poor battery and software*. I also miss the days when there were a dozen major companies competing in the portable music space.
Yeah I picked up three of them at a Radio Shack that was clearing them out, all gone now. Most of the value of those would be in the 32 or 64GB microSD card I'd put in them! Most recent one is a refurb off eBay, but the battery is pretty poor.
There actually are still quite a few companies making mp3 players, but they call them Digital Audio Players (DAPs) and market them to the audio enthusiast crowd. The do cost a lot more than the Sansa Clips did, but you get better audio quality. Look up Fiio, Shanling, Cowon, and Sony DAPs on Amazon if you want some examples.
I still have a Clip+/Rockbox that I load up with meditation tracks. I don't feel as bad falling asleep with this thing clipped to me as I would my phone.
Judging from all the comments, the Sansa Clip+ was a popular option. I used to have one to and loved it, but eventually my use of a standalone mp3 players faded when I had a phone on me at all times and the last time I pulled it out of a drawer, I couldn't get the thing to hold a charge and it didn't seem worth the trouble to see if replacement batteries for it were even a thing.
Yes - I have Rockbox running on a Sansa Clip+ and it's superb. The only music player apart from Winamp that has a built-in out-of-phase stereo option! (aka 'vocal remover', though the effect is highly variable)
I have a similar story, it really worked well. Nowadays it's hard to compete with services like Spotify, it's got basically all the music I care for accessible instantly.
But I suppose that if music streaming follows in the footsteps of TV show/movie streaming where you have to subscribe to half a dozen services to get access to most of the content I'll have to dust off my old Rockbox player and bittorent client. Hopefully it won't come to that.
My ~7 year old Sansa Clip+ is still going. Soon after buying it, I was fed up with it scanning everything when I turned it on. When I loaded Rockbox on it, and it was able to reliably go from off to playing music in 2 seconds, I knew it was a keeper! (That's a killer app right there!) I use it just about every day when commuting. I bought another one for my dad about 3 years ago, but he doesn't use it, so I intend to ask for it after mine dies. (Who knows how long that will be. These things are built like old Nokia phones.)
You must be lucky and/or careful. I've gone through a bunch, and aside from losing them, it's always the headphone jack input that goes. Apparently this was common enough there were soldering how-to videos out there.
One of the things I valued most is being able to navigate the device without looking at it - not possible with the move to touchscreen interfaces most things have moved to.
I loved my Sansa e200 and installed Rockbox. Just pulled it out of a drawer and remembered what a great piece of hardware it was - hadn't been used in years and the battery still had a charge. The hardware wheel selector is a lost piece of tech that needs to be recovered, perhaps for use in car stereos and TV remotes. Rockbox was a great idea, well executed. However I'm baffled why it's still seeing so much recent activity considering how few MP3 players are still in use.
I used Rockbox a lot, I even made my own build so I can configure some buttons to tigger specific actions. Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox has been my music player for a long time.
The problem now is that mobile phones have killed multimedia players and it's hard to find new players with Rockbox support :-(
Used to run this on my old iPod 4G and later on iPod Video. Those were the days. Play whatever audio/video format you want, could run video games. Those were the days -- can't believe it was only 12 years ago.
It run great for years on my two old Sansa Clip Zip, and now that the only barely surviving one is about to go (dead keys, defective phones connector, reduced battery life etc) and attempting to open it is a nearly destructive operation, Those of us who wouldn't use a cellphone for multiple reasons need an alternative, but most modern players are either costly due to being niche market products or can't run Rockbox for having not enough resources.
I think Rockbox badly needs to be ported to other architectures. The cheap and powerful Esp32-WROVER modules (4MB Flash + 8MB PSRAM) could probably be a capable candidate, and i2s for the external DAC is already supported. Not an easy task though.
Installed this on a now-ancient Toshiba Gigabeat 40GB MP3 player waay back in 2010. The default firmware and UI for a lot of non-iPod players were awful, despite having good hardware.
Rockbox had DOS-like graphics but it's functionality was amazing. I remember installing it because I wanted to calculate how much battery life my 5-year old Toshiba had left. It actually had a counter where it'd play music till the battery died, and when you rebooted it, it'd show you exactly how long playback lasted. Really nifty feature.
I have this on an old iPod Video - easily the best media player I've ever had. I think this was my first exposure to the idea of running non-Apple firmware on Apple devices (loathe to call it a jailbreak, but it feels sorta like one).
Much love for Rockbox. I used to run this on the iriver h120 and use it for amazing lossless recording on the cheap. This was one of the earliest things that got me interested in open source.
For those interested, it can run fine on currently produced AGPTRocker/Benjie T2, although it's not officially supported as of yet. More bulky than Sansa, but there's no options left anymore.
Would you mind linking to more info on either that device or its rockbox support? I'm having trouble telling if I'm looking at the right device with a different name or what.
I'd love to have rockbox running again, my last player died years back. Unofficial support would be fine as long as it works decently well.
EDIT: Found it, it's the AGPTEK Rocker v1 or v2 (same insides apparently), or also the Benjie T6. I could not find a T2 at all.
I use Sansa Clip Zip with Rockbox daily and mostly for audiobooks.
My favorite feature is possibility to increase playback speed while keeping pitch intact
I've used Rockbox since I was pretty much a child. It had pretty good accessibility support, and a sansa Clip + was an order of magnitude cheaper than all the players made specially for the blind. I remember being so proud of that purchase and my tech knowledge to actually install Rockbox onto the player. A lot of my friends were impressed that I could achieve something like that for such a low price. I remember using Balabolka[1] to convert text ebooks to mp3, with a speech synthesizer, and then reading those books on the Sansa, for the lack of a build-in TTS. I switched to streaming and reading on my phone in like 2014. I never looked back, though I still have the Sansa lying around on my desk.
Still running Rockbox on an iPod Video for tunes in a car that doesn't speak Bluetooth but has an aux jack. Considering an upgrade, having recently discovered there are new devices that can run Rockbox, including this one: https://fiio.com/m3k
Hats off to the Rockbox developers. This project has been so solid for so long, I kinda take it for granted.
Heh - I helped out on the port to 80GB video which came with a rather odd ATA controller on it that didn't work with the first cut of the ATA driver that Rockbox had been shipping with before the 80GB model came along.
Fun times. Still have loads of friends from the dev crowd, including Daniel Stenberg, who is better known for curl - but was also one of the original Rockbox hackers. :D
111 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadThis was that moment with my old 30GB iPod, thanks for the trip down memory lane!
I think this sort of behavior should be embraced by manufacturers, but I get it; everything needs its own app store these days for a continuous stream of revenue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archos_Jukebox_series
At the time it was an exciting experience to replace the default firmware with Rockbox. There was some danger involved as there was the small potential of bricking the hardware. I was so nervous, because at the time I was too young to afford replacing hardware. It went smoothly and paid off.
It was instructive in my eventual switch to Linux.
Good times.
I especially liked Archos earphones that hooked over the ears and wrapped around the back of the neck. I had to order multiple sets of those earphones separately.
Alas, all things come to an end. It was replaced with an Archos 504 audio/video player with 80 GB. That was so cool too. I had to learn my ffmpeg settings to convert videos to play on it.
Next, I figured out the format, and technique to put videos onto my flip phone (before smartphones). Cool, neato, but capacity was limited.
I'm planning to try selling it on Ebay now, since I just use my phone now.
I use a CLip Sport for workouts, but they are not nearly as good as the Clip+
The hardware that ran early Clips, IPod shuffles, and other small players existed 15 years ago. A dozen Chinese manufacturers still sell small players, which now are about the only option left, but they skimp on quality components like batteries and decent software.
Sadly, I work a daytime job and don't really have the time or will to actually capitalize on this. I do think that'd be a great way for Rockbox to fund themselves though. Make a Kickstarter with Rockbox officially supporting it, and the profits could go to the upkeep of rockbox.
But like you said, they're geared towards either the high end like FiiO or the very very lowend (i.e. third world countries where smartphones are only beginning to become ubiquitous in the last few years).
I just want a simple self contained mp3 player. If mine breaks, I think my next one will be an iPod loaded with Rockbox.
Power is hardly relevant in this day and age, as any device with a decent firmware should be able to handle a ton of files and formats (this wasn't always the case, hence the need for rockbox).
Smart phones have versatility, but you sacrifice a lot on the music side. The audio hardware within the smartphone isn't as good, and it took a lot of years until there was an android player that had the bare minimum of features required by an audio enthusiast, namely lossless support (flac), replay gain, and gapless playback. Additionally, there are now players that run android and have all the "fruit", so the benefits are dimished.
But don't overlook the versatility of a standalone player, because relatively cheap devices like the Fiio X3 II that I am still running have other advantages compared to phone. It supports big sd cards (wasn't always a given on smart phones), has long battery life, has physical buttons (so can be operated without removing from pocket), and also functions as a USB DAC. So, lots of wins there.
They seem to be in the business of making Linux style things, and I wonder if this would be up their alley.
I got overwhelmed at the prospect of starting the CAD schematic and layout for the project (I've done simple microcontroller boards in Eagle, but never one this complex). The daunting task was wiring up all the data and address lines for 2x large RAM chips and 2x Flash chips, and my ADHD kicked in, plus frustration at not being able to use programmer abstractions to do circuit CAD. I also kept not finding the time to port Rockbox on the hardware development kit.
Side note: there's giant hole in the market offerings for hobbyist single board computers. You have microcontrollers with KB's of RAM, and things like the Raspberry Pi with GB's of RAM, but there's nothing with ~16 MB of RAM and a low power 32-bit processor. The chips exist, just no one has created a cheap & compact hobbyist board (i.e. not a hw dev kit).
ST's STM32 Discovery boards [1] fit that bill reasonably well. They're inexpensive (many under $20, most under $100), supported by an open toolchain (GCC / GDB / OpenOCD), and provide a wide variety of peripherals. Most parts don't have more than 1 or 2 MB of on-chip SRAM, but a decent number of their boards have 8 or 16 MB of external SDRAM.
[1]: https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32-discovery-kits....
Now I just use my phone and streaming, but I sort of miss that era.
I had done an early port of NSF, SPC, and ADX players back when I had an iPod Photo, though I think the NSF one was redone since. I also did some work on a text-only wikipedia viewer that was fun to have, though never really shippable: https://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/4755
That being said, about 3-4 years ago the quality really began to decline on the Clip models - not sure if they just changed their manufacturing place or what, but a lot of us fans were disappointed.
There really are no good options anymore for a standalone small MP3 player. You've got bulky Iphones and Android, expensive IPads (the Shuffle was a good option 'till it was discontinued) and dozens off terrible Chinese knockoffs with poor battery and software*. I also miss the days when there were a dozen major companies competing in the portable music space.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mp3+player&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
http://xvtx.ru/rockbox/
But I suppose that if music streaming follows in the footsteps of TV show/movie streaming where you have to subscribe to half a dozen services to get access to most of the content I'll have to dust off my old Rockbox player and bittorent client. Hopefully it won't come to that.
One of the things I valued most is being able to navigate the device without looking at it - not possible with the move to touchscreen interfaces most things have moved to.
Nowadays I use my phone and really miss the physical buttons that I could use blindly while it's in my bag.
The problem now is that mobile phones have killed multimedia players and it's hard to find new players with Rockbox support :-(
I think Rockbox badly needs to be ported to other architectures. The cheap and powerful Esp32-WROVER modules (4MB Flash + 8MB PSRAM) could probably be a capable candidate, and i2s for the external DAC is already supported. Not an easy task though.
Thank you for the trip down the memory lane.
Rockbox had DOS-like graphics but it's functionality was amazing. I remember installing it because I wanted to calculate how much battery life my 5-year old Toshiba had left. It actually had a counter where it'd play music till the battery died, and when you rebooted it, it'd show you exactly how long playback lasted. Really nifty feature.
I'd love to have rockbox running again, my last player died years back. Unofficial support would be fine as long as it works decently well.
EDIT: Found it, it's the AGPTEK Rocker v1 or v2 (same insides apparently), or also the Benjie T6. I could not find a T2 at all.
Found from: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=52220.0
The most active thread is this one: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,51653.0.html
AGPTek seems to not be complying with the GPL, which bothers me, but I doubt I'll be able to resist the temptation to get rockbox working again.
TY <3
[1] http://cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm
Hats off to the Rockbox developers. This project has been so solid for so long, I kinda take it for granted.
Fun times. Still have loads of friends from the dev crowd, including Daniel Stenberg, who is better known for curl - but was also one of the original Rockbox hackers. :D