[SunRescue] Thought on SPARC MP3 player.

[Steve Pacenka]

Peter Wargo wrote:

> While playing with our TiVo last night, I got struck by the idea of using
> a SPARCstation to do something similar.  I know there are had-drive
> equipped music devices out there, But I though I'd build my own for the
> fun of it.
> 
> What I would do is store MP3's on my file server, and hook this box the
> stereo and the network.  I think some sort of Web-based interface to
> access it would be fine, as we have a pair of wireless powerbooks that
> would allow access from anywhere.
> 
> The question is, what to use?  If I want to run the web page on it and
> decompress MP3's, I need *some* beef, but I'm not sure how much.  Plus, I
> want to keep the noise and electrical costs down.
> 
> Resources:
> Classic
> LX
> SS5/85
> SS5/170
> SS10, HS-100 or 1 or 2 SM-40's
> U1
> 
> Or, should I sell a bunch of stuff and use a blade 100...?  Or a low-end
> powermac?

It is odd to think that boxes which cost $10,000 - $15,000 originally should 
substitute for $200 mp3-cd players.  But I digress ...

xmms performs well for me on a ss10 with sm51 cpu module and solaris 8.  I 
select the speakerbox line-out which feeds amplified speakers.  The mp3s are 
stored on CD-Rs or on a PC file server.

I sometimes run Greg Stein's edna Python script on the PC file server which 
then allows a browser on the Sun box to receive streamed mp3s.  Again XMMS is 
the player, invoked by Netscape.

  http://edna.sourceforge.net/


I wonder if a 68040 Mac has enough horsepower to decode+play MP3s and talk to 
a network at the same time ...

-- SP