The Web MiniDisc App (2020)

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&#x27;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&#x27;s so good that even &#x2F;r&#x2F;minidisc no longer bother using old software to enjoy this format, they keep recommending this. This is an excellent work

&gt; 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&#x27;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&#x2F;transferring music.<p>Can anyone in the know give a quick explanation why that is the case? I appreciate it&#x27;s a moot point now with the extreme price of MD-RWs, but every now and then I&#x27;m reminded of them and get upset. It&#x27;s probably out of the question now that there&#x27;s an MD resurgence like cassettes are enjoying.

I&#x27;m really nostalgic about the MiniDisc format. You&#x27;ve inspired me to check my loft to see if mine still works. Thing is, besides retro coolness, I can&#x27;t think of any particular use cases that my mobile isn&#x27;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&#x27;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:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.minidisc.org&#x2F;part_Sony_MZ-R55.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.minidisc.org&#x2F;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&#x27;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&#x27;ve been wanting to create a FLAC library of MD rips, or at least recreate the playlists to burn onto some blanks if they&#x27;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&#x27;s clear they&#x27;ll only ever be a niche player).

I used to have a minidisc player in the early 2000s. Loved that thing. It got replaced for an iPod mini though, which was way more convenient.

Loved MD&#x27;s.. used to have a few decks, and at least 3 portables. Wish they made a Hi-MD car deck.

Wow that’s amazing I didn’t think the USB api in the browser was able to do things like that

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 ?

What an awesome, fun idea. Great work, thanks for sharing!

does thiswork with windows ? i have tried but sadly did not succeed with chrome.

This is really awesome!

Brilliant!

I&#x27;m not a coder, so perhaps I&#x27;m missing the appeal of this project. My main takeaway is that I can&#x27;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.