[ale] Quasi-OT: One for the true hackers

[Chris Ricker]

On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, Robert L. Harris wrote:

> 
> 
>   Ok, this isn't a software cracking but a hardware hacking problem.
> I've got an Archos Jucebox MP3 player.  Sucker is worth every penny, USB
> interface (no Firewire but I don't have firewire anywhere anyway), it
> plugs straight into my home desktop and mounts up as usb storage, has
> 10Gig capacity, etc.  Makes a great MP3 player or just portable drive.
> 
>   I've found one problem though.  The shockmounting sucks hard.  When I
> put the unit on the passenger seat of my truck for the drive to work it
> has absolutely 0 problems.  When I put it in my jacket pocket and hop on
> the motorcycle I get alot of skipping, and drive errors.  When I get up to
> good speed I get alot of road bumps and wind buffeting.  The unit has a
> good buffer but it takes a pretty solid beating thought.  I've tried
> different pockets (inside, outside, etc).  I tried making a "case" of
> bubblewrap which helped a little bit but was a pain to get it in and out
> of but still skipped a good bit.
> 
>   Any good thoughts on something that might help protect the system so I
> can listen to music on the drive in instead of the inane chatter of DJ's
> with a portable radio (I hate morning talkshows 'Listent to me, I'm the
> funniest thing ever!!!!')...

You can hack the Archos to have a bigger memory buffer. See

<http://waechter.wiz.at/~matthias/Rockbox/HW-Mod/8MB/>

That should help some -- the thing works by spinning up, reading the mp3
to the buffer, then spinning down and playing from the buffer.

BTW, see <http://rockbox.haxx.se/> for all the hacks you can do to the
Archos, including a replacement OS for it....

I tried an Archos, but eventually just got a Rio Riot instead. It has a
much bigger memory buffer (16 megs instead of 2), so it Just Works
without me having to hack it (though mine gets abused from running instead
of motorcycles ;-).

later,
chris
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