by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

I just got a new Walkman for my birthday. I was dithering about which mp3 player I wanted, so my computer-astute daughter took things in her own hands and got me this. It's a Sony and it is actually pretty cool. One AA battery operation (good for 40 hours of playing time), and Atrac encoding which would allow me to put up to 490 tracks on a cd-r/w. Now, for those of you who have iPods which can store thousands of tracks, this might sound lame...but I don't have even 490 ripped to mp3s. So, this is a pretty good interim solution. I can play the cd's I haven't ripped yet, and I can mix my own discs which is like having manual playlists. However, this new player does present a problem.

The problem is what to do with a raft of older stuff that works fine...just doesn't do what this thing does. I have two cd players which are in perfect working order and a Lyra mp3 player for which I have all the software, but only a 256meg flash card. Plus, the Lyra is 5 years old which tells you that, actually, it is about 3 generations of mp3 players out of date. But it still works. And finally, I have a Sony MD player (model MZ-R37) which has never been used. (It was a present for a nephew who decided he didn't like it and returned it to me. Unfortunately, I had gotten in on a clearance sale, so I couldn't return it. So, here it sits, unused and unloved. OK, the major problems were I never found an easy source for the mini discs and I don't have the USB/optical cable. But, other than those minor problems, it is in perfect working order.)

So, this means I have to find a box for this stuff. What I'm looking for (and I'll keep watching the local newspapers for this stuff) is a charity which could use a couple of older cd-players. I would like to know that some kid who previously didn't have one of these things now could listen to his/her favorite music. Sooner or later I'll find users for all this stuff.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005