I Would Happily Go Back to Using an MP3 Player if I Could Put Winamp in My Pocket

If Winamp, one of the earliest mp3 players for PCs, were put in my pocket, I would happily embrace the convenience of carrying around a separate mp3 player.

It wasn't hard to get a collection of digital audio files on a computer before the mp3 spec was released. The problem of finding a place to store all the files from the music CD was easy to solve. I bought my first computer in 1996 and used it to store two CDs worth of music.

The popularity of the mp3 format was due to the fact that it cut the storage space needed for digital audio files in half. The Winamp media player, which was released in 1997 and helped make mp3s so popular, only needed 1 MB of storage space. It was fully featured out of the gate with support for playlists, an easy-to-use graphic-EQ, and an ever-growing collection of skins and visualizers. If you had a large collection of mp3s in the late 90s and early 2000s, you probably still have a soft spot for the Winamp app.

Tim C has fond memories of whipping the llama's ass, so they turned the $55 Adafruit PyPortal into a Python-based program.

Tim C has shared a detailed guide on how to turn the PyPortal into the ultimate late 90's nostalgia device.

It's important to note that this isn't a full implementation of the Winamp user interface. You can pause and resume music with a tap on the top of the screen. The WinampUI's individual buttons don't work, and the graphic EQ doesn't work. It'sComplicated that the only way to build and modify a playlists is on a computer. It still reproduces the stuttered scroll of the track name being played.