We don't need no stinkin' iPod, we gots a Rock Box!
Tags: +Technology+; +Hacking+
Have you ever had iPod envy? Well, I haven't, but after seeing all the cool stuff they could do that my Archos Recorder V1 couldn't, I was starting. Somehow, even though I've hacked into my xbox (http://www.xbox-scene.com), it had never occured to me that there might be a community of hackers out there makeing firmware upgrades to popular items. Sure, I'd heard about it on some select DVD players, but I never figured that my MP3 player might have such an option. Enter the Rock Box (http://www.rockbox.org).
It's a complete rewrite of the firmware for a host of Archos MP3 players. It takes something that once only played MP3s (and that poorly) and upgrades it to be a crappy PDA with calender functions, calculator, games (Wormlets ROCKS!), hell, even a greyscale image viewer and movie viewer. VERY nice. And yes, it still plays MP3s. Infact, it plays them better. I don't know why, I assume the makers didn't take much time to make sure it worked right, but now when I fast forward to the next song, it WORKS (before, it would sometimes crash the player)! It even has a car adapter mode (which the original firm ware was sadly lacking).
Very impressive. I'm hooked. I went out and blew $30 bucks yesterday on adapters for it. My MP3 player went from almost useless (I still used it as a big moble HDD, 15 gigs is hard to pass up), to being my third most carried gizmo (right behind my crappy cell phone (kyocera KX414) and my Nintendo DS).
Have you ever had iPod envy? Well, I haven't, but after seeing all the cool stuff they could do that my Archos Recorder V1 couldn't, I was starting. Somehow, even though I've hacked into my xbox (http://www.xbox-scene.com), it had never occured to me that there might be a community of hackers out there makeing firmware upgrades to popular items. Sure, I'd heard about it on some select DVD players, but I never figured that my MP3 player might have such an option. Enter the Rock Box (http://www.rockbox.org).
It's a complete rewrite of the firmware for a host of Archos MP3 players. It takes something that once only played MP3s (and that poorly) and upgrades it to be a crappy PDA with calender functions, calculator, games (Wormlets ROCKS!), hell, even a greyscale image viewer and movie viewer. VERY nice. And yes, it still plays MP3s. Infact, it plays them better. I don't know why, I assume the makers didn't take much time to make sure it worked right, but now when I fast forward to the next song, it WORKS (before, it would sometimes crash the player)! It even has a car adapter mode (which the original firm ware was sadly lacking).
Very impressive. I'm hooked. I went out and blew $30 bucks yesterday on adapters for it. My MP3 player went from almost useless (I still used it as a big moble HDD, 15 gigs is hard to pass up), to being my third most carried gizmo (right behind my crappy cell phone (kyocera KX414) and my Nintendo DS).
posted by True Vox at 4/02/2005 09:25:00 AM
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