World's First MP3 Player Is 10 Years Old
It was back in March of 1998 that the world first got a glimpse of the MPMan F10 at the CeBit tech trade show in Hanover, Germany. The prototype garnered enough attention that, by May of that year, the Korean company Saehan Information Systems was mass producing the devices. By summer of 1998, the 32-megabyte (MB) flash device was on sale in the U.S. for $250.
At 3.6 x 2.75 x 6.5-inches, the MPMan was significantly larger than any media player on the market right now, save some of the largest wide screen video players. The Walkman-sized-device could only hold a small handful of songs, and its display was only slightly fancier than your standard digital alarm clock.
By now, of course, Saehan Information Systems and its MPMan are all but forgotten. In fact, many mistakenly point to the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300 as the first commercially available MP3 player, but the MPMan beat that CD-player-sized wonder to market by several months.
The bulkiness and limited capabilities of both devices may make them seem quaint when compared to your 32-gigabyte (1000 times the capacity of the original MPMan) iPod Touch, but these archaic devices helped spark a revolution that has completely changed the way we buy and consume music and media.
Gallery: The First MP3 Player
From Register Hardware (via Engadget)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Davin Peterson @ Mar 11th 2008 3:20PM
Hey, it is wrong to call mp3 players iPods for 2 reasons:
1) Apple did not invent the mp3 player
2) Apple did not invent the interface on their player. Creative did.
Creative invented the iPod interface and their first ZEN player was out in 2000, 1 year before the iPod. Apple stole the interface from Creative. Due to the iPod, Creative gets no recogition. Creative had a video player about before the iPod video and they had the world's first 32GB flash player. Creative ZEN's are better than the iPod.
dwalmz @ Mar 11th 2008 3:35PM
Man, it seems not so long ago I bought my first mp3 player. A Diamond Rio with 32mb and I bought a 32mb backpack which doubled the memory. Sad thing is is lasted all of 2 months. The early players were prone to static shocks and it rendered mine useless.
AnthonyT @ Mar 23rd 2008 4:45PM
I still have my Rio 300 and when I look at it I'm reminded how far we have come in just a handful of years. Makes me wonder what we will have to listen to 10 years from now.