Mod an MP3-CD player to accept HDD

Hey,

Been looking to make a portable MP3 player. So started looking at SBCs
and stuff. Figured out that its difficult to beat the commercial
HDD-MP3 players (US$200 for Neuros 20GB MP3 player!!) on price/size
bcoz a SBC is a general purpose computer whereas a commercial HDD-MP3
player is just that - an MP3 decoder.

So I figured what if the CD on a regular CD-MP3 player can be replaced
with a HDD?? Should it be perfectly possible. The Mp3 CD is the ISO
9660 that we burn on our PCs. So the CD-MP3 player must recognise
that. So emulate the HDD to look like a ISO 9660 CD and we should be
done (there are minor details like power supply, ofcourse ;) )

And thats the question. How does one emulate ISO 9660 on a HDD. Or can
the CD-MP3 player read FAT32? I found some guy selling an emulator but
its too expensive (~US$250).

My guess is that they should read FAT32. Why? Look at the cheap
MP3-Flash players with detachable pen drives. The pen drive is
formatted to be FAT16/32. One idea was to plug an external HDD via USB
to the MP3-Flash player after detaching the Pen drive. However, such
combos have lots of controls on the pen drive and the cheap ones don't
have a LCD display good enough to wade thru GBs of MP3s.

Hints/Suggestions/Pointers? The goal is the cheapest portable Mp3
player per GB!! :)

The working solution will be documented and posted for everyone to
see. (Trust me ;) )

TIA,

Siddhartha

On 7 Jun 2004 07:31:15 -0700, Siddhartha Jain <losttoy2000@yahoo.co.uk> 
wrote:

> Been looking to make a portable MP3 player.

Have a look here: http://www.myplace.nu/mp3/

HTH,

   Vadim

Thanks Vadim. But I am more interested in modding a MP3-CD player to
accept HDD. Why?? A MP3-CD player costs ~US$25. In this amount, you
get a MP3 decoder, DAC, LCD Display, IDE/ATAPI controller(?). So if I
could add a ~US$50 2.5 inch HDD to it then this would be the cheapest
HDD-MP3 player by far!!

I opened up my older Audio CD player (Sony) and found a legacy 14-pin
cd drive controller. Need to procure a MP3-CD player and open that up.
Assuming that a MP3-CD player has a IDE/ATAPI controller, any clue
what would it take to emulate ATAPI (by a ATA disk)? I see two
problems:
1. ATA to ATAPI bridging or ATAPI emulation in hardware.
2. The controller on the MP3 CD player might be hard-coded to read
addresses covering only 650MB (CD size)?

Any help?

TIA,

Siddhartha


losttoy2000@yahoo.co.uk (Siddhartha Jain) wrote in message news:<2c39af62.0406070631.626dda01@posting.google.com>...
> Hey,
> 
> Been looking to make a portable MP3 player. So started looking at SBCs
> and stuff. Figured out that its difficult to beat the commercial
> HDD-MP3 players (US$200 for Neuros 20GB MP3 player!!) on price/size
> bcoz a SBC is a general purpose computer whereas a commercial HDD-MP3
> player is just that - an MP3 decoder.
> 
> So I figured what if the CD on a regular CD-MP3 player can be replaced
> with a HDD?? Should it be perfectly possible. The Mp3 CD is the ISO
> 9660 that we burn on our PCs. So the CD-MP3 player must recognise
> that. So emulate the HDD to look like a ISO 9660 CD and we should be
> done (there are minor details like power supply, ofcourse ;) )
> 
> And thats the question. How does one emulate ISO 9660 on a HDD. Or can
> the CD-MP3 player read FAT32? I found some guy selling an emulator but
> its too expensive (~US$250).
> 
> My guess is that they should read FAT32. Why? Look at the cheap
> MP3-Flash players with detachable pen drives. The pen drive is
> formatted to be FAT16/32. One idea was to plug an external HDD via USB
> to the MP3-Flash player after detaching the Pen drive. However, such
> combos have lots of controls on the pen drive and the cheap ones don't
> have a LCD display good enough to wade thru GBs of MP3s.
> 
> Hints/Suggestions/Pointers? The goal is the cheapest portable Mp3
> player per GB!! :)
> 
> The working solution will be documented and posted for everyone to
> see. (Trust me ;) )
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Siddhartha

Siddhartha Jain wrote:
> Assuming that a MP3-CD player has a IDE/ATAPI controller

That seems highly unlikely, especially for $25.

For your other question, "mkisofs" in every Linux distribution
can make iso9660 images in any size.

In article <2c39af62.0406071401.1fea8ed7@posting.google.com>, Siddhartha 
Jain <losttoy2000@yahoo.co.uk> writes
>Thanks Vadim. But I am more interested in modding a MP3-CD player to
>accept HDD. Why?? A MP3-CD player costs ~US$25. In this amount, you
>get a MP3 decoder, DAC, LCD Display, IDE/ATAPI controller(?). So if I
>could add a ~US$50 2.5 inch HDD to it then this would be the cheapest
>HDD-MP3 player by far!!
>
>I opened up my older Audio CD player (Sony) and found a legacy 14-pin
>cd drive controller. Need to procure a MP3-CD player and open that up.
>Assuming that a MP3-CD player has a IDE/ATAPI controller, any clue
>what would it take to emulate ATAPI (by a ATA disk)? I see two
>problems:
>1. ATA to ATAPI bridging or ATAPI emulation in hardware.
>2. The controller on the MP3 CD player might be hard-coded to read
>addresses covering only 650MB (CD size)?

Standalone MP3 CD players do not get involved in IDE or ATAPI. They 
handle the raw data from the disc pickup directly. It is not possible to 
do what you are suggesting.

-- 
Tim Mitchell

The Fujitel MP3/VCD/ACD player retails for Rs.1250 (Approx US$25) in
India.

The Mp3 CDs are burned in the ISO9660 format. If a CD-Mp3 player does
not have a IDE/ATAPI controller, how else would it read the CD? And
all the open Mp3-CD player designs I came across on the net include a
IDE/ATAPI controller. http://home.hetnet.nl/~victorvanacht/ and
http://www.pjrc.com/tech/8051/ide/wesley.html

Btw, I opened an older (4 year) Sony ACD player and found that it has
a Sony CXA2542AQ controller chip for the cd-drive with a 14-pin
connector. Now the 14-pin is the legacy cd connector. Another old
panasonic VCD/ACD player had a 16-pin connector. Looks proprietary.
Looking for a Mp3-cd player to dissect :)

Cheers,

Siddhartha


Clifford Heath <cjh-nospam@nospaManagesoft.com> wrote in message news:<1086670083.912622@excalibur.osa.com.au>...
> Siddhartha Jain wrote:
> > Assuming that a MP3-CD player has a IDE/ATAPI controller
> 
> That seems highly unlikely, especially for $25.
> 
> For your other question, "mkisofs" in every Linux distribution
> can make iso9660 images in any size.

Then why do Stand-alone MP3-CD player projects like the ones I
mentioned below use a IDE controller (Intel 8255A)?
And if no controller is involved except for motor control then why do
manufacturers require that you burn the Mp3 CD in ISO9660 format?

Just curious.



Tim Mitchell <timng@sabretechnology.co.uk> wrote in message news:<h9kRmwOkbZxAFA0V@tega.co.uk>...
> In article <2c39af62.0406071401.1fea8ed7@posting.google.com>, Siddhartha 
> Jain <losttoy2000@yahoo.co.uk> writes
> >Thanks Vadim. But I am more interested in modding a MP3-CD player to
> >accept HDD. Why?? A MP3-CD player costs ~US$25. In this amount, you
> >get a MP3 decoder, DAC, LCD Display, IDE/ATAPI controller(?). So if I
> >could add a ~US$50 2.5 inch HDD to it then this would be the cheapest
> >HDD-MP3 player by far!!
> >
> >I opened up my older Audio CD player (Sony) and found a legacy 14-pin
> >cd drive controller. Need to procure a MP3-CD player and open that up.
> >Assuming that a MP3-CD player has a IDE/ATAPI controller, any clue
> >what would it take to emulate ATAPI (by a ATA disk)? I see two
> >problems:
> >1. ATA to ATAPI bridging or ATAPI emulation in hardware.
> >2. The controller on the MP3 CD player might be hard-coded to read
> >addresses covering only 650MB (CD size)?
> 
> Standalone MP3 CD players do not get involved in IDE or ATAPI. They 
> handle the raw data from the disc pickup directly. It is not possible to 
> do what you are suggesting.

In article <2c39af62.0406080602.75dbce0e@posting.google.com>, Siddhartha 
Jain <losttoy2000@yahoo.co.uk> writes
>Then why do Stand-alone MP3-CD player projects like the ones I
>mentioned below use a IDE controller (Intel 8255A)?
>And if no controller is involved except for motor control then why do
>manufacturers require that you burn the Mp3 CD in ISO9660 format?
>

Because the stand alone player projects do use an IDE/ATAPI drive, as 
that's the only economical way of buying a CD drive.

And the CD player is designed to read the ISO9660 format because that is 
the standard format that is used by everyone's CD burners.
-- 
Tim Mitchell

Siddhartha Jain wrote:
> 
> Then why do Stand-alone MP3-CD player projects like the ones I
> mentioned below use a IDE controller (Intel 8255A)?

IIRC an 8255 is a fairly simple parallel port adapter.

-- 
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:40C5E443.5EEC4FCF@yahoo.com: 

>> Then why do Stand-alone MP3-CD player projects like the ones I
>> mentioned below use a IDE controller (Intel 8255A)?
> 
> IIRC an 8255 is a fairly simple parallel port adapter.

I was thinking the same thing. I never thought of the venerable 8255 I/O
expander as an IDE controller. I mean try an command the 8255 to READ DMA
and see what it does. :-)

-- 
- Mark ->
--