Comment by yterdy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yterdy | Hacker News Reader

I've been through many a music machine since my first true mp3 player (after a year of fumbling with a half-broken Sony MD player), but if I could shove a 512GB MicroSD card, new battery, and new screen into my old DAH-1500i MobiBLU Cube[1], I'd pick it up again and never let go. Even without playlists, it was perfect: tiny, but with a display (which I didn't even need to use half the time, as I could navigate its menus from my pocket, sight unseen), nicely clicky buttons, simple interface, quick startup.

So, you know, I could listen to music.

There was like a two-year period where these monochrome OLED jewels were offered (Sony's NW-E505/7[2] was another gem, horrible PC software notwithstanding), before ghastly full-color LCDs took over. And they topped out at around 4GB (32, if you include the Sansas that came later, which I don't). Damn shame.

[1]https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dah+1500i&iax=images&ia=images

[2]https://www.crutchfield.com/S-PPVgsomq9x6/p_158NWE505B/Sony-...

Ah I had this, used it for years, and share your feelings. I really love interesting form factors, especially when they maintain practicality. There was a lot of interesting things back then, before the smartphone convergence, when electronics were still toys. I accidentally smashed the screen of my fancy phone (at the time) and on a whim I bought the cheap Nokia Twist as a replacement. Nearly two decades of touchscreens later and I still miss how tiny it was and how good it felt to slide open.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Nokia+twist&kp=1&t=ffab&iar=images...

The small, square gadgets not made by Apple were often underrated. The Twist looks like a better version of the Blackjack II I had as my last non-touchscreen phone. I'd like to have tried it!

This is actually one of the things that makes me excited for AR (pending workable haptics). So many proofs-of-concept are just floating screens; what about functional digital fascimiles of our old gadgets? What about new ones with wild designs? What about modding the old, physical devices themselves to function as interfaces?

In the meantime, it would be nice if this sudden resurgence of interest in older gadgets makes it easier to rehabilitate and maintain them.

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