MP3 appliance

The aim for this project is to turn a retired office computer into a hifi component for playing MP3s. The unit will be a standard brand name Pentium PC repainted black or silver with ordinary hard disk, CD drive and sound card and not require a monitor or keyboard

There are plug ins for MP3 players for WinAmp, DAMP and MPX Play to enable you to see the track information on a small LCD screen rigged up to the printer port. These screens range for 2x20 to 4x40 characters, and are inexpensive and can rigged up to a PC easily, which would be a substitute for an ordinary monitor. LCD screen may be fitted in a drive bay or screwed on to the front.

A low end Pentium base unit could be purchased from a computer dealer that sell ex-office IT equipment, as big corporate companies replace their computers every 4-5 years or so, or you may have a spare computer ready to do the job or lucky to get given a computer maybe thrown away from someone who deems it as worthless junk. I would rather use a brand name system than a clone because majority of clone desktop cases suck, they are too big, made of thin steel and dont look nice, I'd rather use a Compaq, Dell, IBM or Apricot unit as they do desktop PCs, in often slimline desktop form ideal for this project.

A lot of those walkman MP3 players look a bit crummy and a typical 45 minutes worth of music isnt really good enough. A computer disguised as a stereo component for living room or bedroom has the advantage of having a hard disk that can hold many, many hours of music.

Software. Not decided what I am going to use yet. Probably MPXPlay or Damp under DOS. I personally find WinAmp to be over complicated and prone to jumping, but this is probably due to Windows needing to shunt swap files around which could interfere. I could use Linux or BeOS but I am not really familiar with these OSes. The MP3 player must be able to support the HD77480 LCD screen and I dont want to wait ages for the unit to boot up, and want to be able to turn it off immediately as well.

The finished item will sit under my Aiwa stereo system which will act as amp, and look something like the above.

It needs to be:

• For it to look astheticaly pleasing and less computer-like, case will probably painted black or silver
• To be cheap. No point in using a new fast computer which is only going to do one simple task. :o)
• Will have floppy drive removed, wont need it once software loaded, want to make it less like a PC
• Easily updatable with software and songs could be loaded on via CD or Laplink
• Display will be in the form of a small LCD screen fixed to the front of the case
• Simple to use, there will be few buttons on the front to control

To consider in the future:

• Remote control possibly?

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