In a message dated 1/4/02 12:29:40 PM Pacific Standard Time,
itaylor@MEDIAONE.NET writes:

<< To grossly oversimplify, it's like a walkman.  Well, a portable MP3
 player would be like a walkman; they don't have to be portable.  They
 make them for your home stereo, your computer, or even your dashboard.

 MP3 is a file format (same idea as an MPEG or quicktime MOV) which
 compresses roughly one minute of at-least-CD-quality music into one
 megabyte.  Which is to say, that you can take all the music on a CD and
 save it to your computer in a file 1/10th the size.  Now a megabyte used
 to be a lot (believe me I know, I learned to program on a TRS-80 with
 cassette storage) but with hard drives so cheap now, you can literally
 fit every piece of music you have ever owned (heard?) onto a $1000
 jukebox, err: computer.  I have about 4 hours of MP3s on my mobile
 phone, which I use as a walkman when I'm snowboarding or sailing; you
 have to hook the phone up to the computer to get new songs loaded up,
 but it's worth it. >>

I thought MP3's were the newest generation of Military Police. Darn.

I can still remember discussions about how cool it would be if it was
possible to digitally reproduce music. Some guy told me it could never happen
as the player would need to be the size of a small skyscraper. That was 1973.
The age of punch cards, vinyl, platform shoes for men.

BenT