Today, you can play MP3 files—and music files in even higher-quality formats—on just about any device around you. But more than 20 years ago , the MP3 specification, actually called MPEG-1 Audio Layer III, was a real revolution. Until then, extracting songs from a Compact Disc was not complicated, but they took up so much space that it was absurd to do so. MP3 reduced that space by almost 90%. And just around that time, Winamp appeared. If we rule out video games, said software can surely be the one that arouses the most nostalgia among its former users.
Winamp, the program that revolutionized the way of listening to music
Winamp was not the first MP3 music player on the market, but it became the most popular for a long time. Back in 1997 , both personal computers and Internet rates began to get cheaper. And this, coupled with the MP3 specification, made it easier for people to use the computer to play their favorite music – we know, it wouldn’t have been possible either if people hadn’t thrown themselves into file sharing online like crazy.
However, alternatives like Windows Media Player or Real Player did not have intuitive interfaces. They were also not easy to use, and had very basic functions. Thus, Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldrev set out to program digital playback software taking advantage of that gap in the Microsoft Windows market. And it was a complete success. Its first versions already supported the creation of playlists or the random playback of songs. And everything, in a small program that is very simple to use. It didn’t take long for Winamp to pay for itself . As of version 1.5, the application became a paid application, and its creators became millionaires, especially in 1999 , when AOL(America OnLine) took over the Nullsoft program for $80 million. However, the plans of the American communication group fell through, and the original Nullsoft team left the company a few years later.
Still, AOL continued to develop the software, releasing version 5 in late 2003 with a different team of developers. In 2007, AOL announced the end of Winamp , following a corporate restructuring. However, many users continued to use the program for many more years – regardless of the existence of pocket MP3 players.
Winamp as a pocket player. So you can make your own
Winamp ‘s interface remains an icon for all those who remember the software fondly. Tim C, an Adafruit collaborator is one of those nostalgics who spent hours and hours listening to their favorite artists on the yellow lightning show. With a bit of skill, he has created a pocket MP3 player with the Winamp interface . If something like this had come out back in 2005, it would have been covered.
To do this, Tim has used Adafruit’s PyPortal as a base , which is nothing more than a small touch LCD with an ARM processor, wireless connectivity and expansion ports. An almost identical product to a Raspberry Pi, only designed to create IoT devices. However, he has used it to resurrect the mythical Winamp, with an interface recreated in Python . Also, not a single secret has been kept. He has published a step-by-step tutorial on how to build this device on the Adafruit website , and has also provided the programming files so that you too can rediscover and customize the skin of the mythical music playback program.