This is cool.<p>As a side note - I recently found my old MiniDisc player in an old shoebox. Popped in a new AA battery, and it still worked perfectly! Some funny notes... I can't believe it lasts for ages on a single AA battery. And, I had forgotten how noisy they are, with constant whirring and spinning noises coming from the player as it seeks tracks.
Best use of WebUSB so far!
It's so good that even /r/minidisc no longer bother using old software to enjoy this format, they keep recommending this. This is an excellent work
> I started by porting the code from linux-minidisc to a new JS library that I’ve now published on npm, called netmd-js<p>This is a couple of days of work!?
I should just quit trying. Dude is a machine.
I think it's a real shame that there is no way (as far as I know) to use re-writable MiniDiscs in the same way that CR-RWs, for storing generic files. There only seems to be projects like this for storing/transferring music.<p>Can anyone in the know give a quick explanation why that is the case? I appreciate it's a moot point now with the extreme price of MD-RWs, but every now and then I'm reminded of them and get upset. It's probably out of the question now that there's an MD resurgence like cassettes are enjoying.
I'm really nostalgic about the MiniDisc format. You've inspired me to check my loft to see if mine still works. Thing is, besides retro coolness, I can't think of any particular use cases that my mobile isn't better suited for.
This is really neat! I like that the same web app can be used from a desktop and the phone, and the functionality is the same, since they use the same browser API for accessing the device.<p>Too bad my MiniDisc players are pre-NetMD devices.
I used one of the NetMD Minidisc players throughout college.
The discs could be formatted for data and could store 1GB, they would show up on a PC as a USB drive. It beat the hell out of the zip drives everyone else was using.<p>I'm tempted to use this and see if it still works.
Ah, the mini-disc, loved it, and it developed quite nicely. My first one was a Sony [0]. It had 3 hours (they said 4 but meh) on one special li-ion battery (and 6 when I hooked up an external 2 AA compartment, they said 10 but no). When my wife got one, shortly before they got out of fashion hers could run for 40 hours on a single AA battery and fit 4x the amount of music on a disc.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-R55.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-R55.html</a>
I was gifted a Sony MZ-1 in the early 90s that I used until its death in 2020. It survived longer than the MagicLink and the little book reader they also sent. I often felt like the Sony of that era made up formats just so they could design cool gadgets that made use of them.<p>I remember using TOSLINK to write tones to a MiniDisc to use on the old Jupiter or Saturn Bells with the unmuted receivers back before MP3 and other digital audio players existed. I want to say we moved to a Creative Nomad, but it didn't have the same cyberpunk feel as discreetly swapping discs into a MD player.<p>Does anyone know if the masters used were unique MDs or the same as for CDs of the era? I've been wanting to create a FLAC library of MD rips, or at least recreate the playlists to burn onto some blanks if they're the same.
I had no idea NetMD and Hi-MD were things. Sony certainly shows determination when it comes to continuing development of their technology (even when it's clear they'll only ever be a niche player).
great piece of work ! I try it with my sony mz n707 and a galaxy tab. works great. but I did not get it to work with win10 (chrome browser). Is windows supported ?
I'm not a coder, so perhaps I'm missing the appeal of this project. My main takeaway is that I can't understand why somebody would go through the hard work of re-creating this but not bother writing a single line explaining to casual readers <i>what the advantage might be of using the app</i> compared to other more obvious solutions for playing music files.