Perspective: Bragging rights to the world's first MP3 player

Ask even seasoned MP3 buffs about the first MP3 player, and they're almost certain to name the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300.

If they really know their stuff, they'll even tell you it came out in late 1998. They're wrong either way, although you shouldn't be too harsh on them. Their mistake is understandable.

Say it with me: "MPMan."
The Diamond Rio's false status as "the first MP3 player" is practically cemented in technology lore, so before it's too late, I want to set the record straight. The world's first mass-produced hardware MP3 player was Saehan's MPMan, sold in Asia starting in the late spring of 1998.

The Diamond Rio's false status as "the first MP3 player" is practically cemented in technology lore.

It was released in the United States as the Eiger Labs MPMan F10/F20 (two variants of the same device) in the summer of 1998, a few months before the Rio.

Most tech-savvy types wrongly think Diamond's device was first because, like nearly every other major development in digital music, the Rio brought with it a spectacular flurry of legal wrangling and the attendant media exposure. (Back in those days, you were nobody in the digital-music business unless the labels had sued you.)

So why did the Recording Industry Association of America single out Diamond as the first defendant in its doomed battle against digital music rather than targeting Saehan-Eiger Labs, which was the actual "patient zero?" It's simple: California-based Diamond Multimedia was far easier for the record labels to sue than the MPMan's Korean manufacturer. If the RIAA had wanted to sue Saehan instead, it would have had to find a U.S.-based office or subsidiary of the company, win the case in court, and then try to convince a Korean court to enforce the ruling. What a hassle.

What went wrong?
If the RIAA had gone global and sued Saehan instead, perhaps Eiger Labs would be as recognizable today as the Rio brand is. Or maybe Saehan should have established an office in America, where it could be properly sued or feted for its new device.

Photo: CNET Networks

The Eiger Labs F20 is shown next to
the latest 40GB iPod.

It would have been a drastic measure, but as things stand today, Eiger Labs remains largely anonymous.

Even the blink tag-laden EigerLabs.com, which used to proudly display the words "World's first MP3 player," seems to have finally bitten the digital dust. (There's nothing at the site, although the domain is registered until Oct. 6, 2005.)

So if Saehan-Eiger Labs produced the world's first flash-based MP3 player, you might be wondering who earned that distinction for hard-drive players like Apple Computer's iPod.

The world's first "iPod"
Credit for this goes to Compaq's Systems Research Center and the Palo Alto Advanced Development group--essentially a bunch of engineers from Compaq's laptop division who realized that hard drives could replace flash memory in MP3 players and enable them to hold far more music. When I reviewed the MP3 player these groups created (the Hango/Remote Solutions Personal Jukebox PJB-100), I was blown away by the then unheard of 6GB capacity, crystal-clear sound and ample display, compared with the skimpy 32MB devices I'd seen previously, such as the MPMan and Rio.

"I had one of the 'Compaq' devices, called the Personal Jukebox (or PJB-100).... But besides updated drivers to work with WinXP, the iPod didn't offer a whole heck of a lot more to me than I had in 1999!! Goes to show you, marketing is king, not R&D. Better to be a fast follower than an innovator."
--Kevin Mccarty

Here comes the irony: In 1998, Compaq's engineers made the first hard drive-based MP3 player and licensed it to a Korean company, Hango, that didn't do much with it. In 2001, the first iPod came out. In 2002, Hewlett-Packard acquired Compaq. In 2004, HP made a deal with Apple to distribute HP-branded iPods.

I know I'm reducing the situation, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assert that the entity now known as HP beat Apple in the race to make a high-capacity portable music player by three years--an eternity in the world of MP3 players--and still somehow lost.

I promise that the next MP3 Insider column will be a bit more forward-looking, but I just had to make it clear, once and for all:

First MP3 player in the world: the Saehan-Eiger Labs F10/F20. First hard-drive-based MP3 player in the world: the Hango/Remote Solutions Portable Jukebox PJB-100.

Thank you.

Biography
Eliot Van Buskirk is an editor at CNET MP3.com. He is the author of the book "Burning Down the House: Ripping, Recording, Remixing, and More!"

More Perspectives

I knew of Saehan's MPMan...

and not only that, we (O'WONDER) started talks with Saehan in
'98 to discuss us importing or developing a custom version for
sales in the USA. The painful fact for us was, I conceived the
world's first solid state music player in 1988 (ten years earlier!)
and so it was quite painful to consider selling someone elses. We
planned on developing our own but our team of engineers from
Stanford University were too unreliable to even attend meetings
on time so the project fell apart. Bummer.

Here is picture of our 1988 design...

http://www.owonder.com/udis/datacard/digiman.html

We may still develop a portable device of some form. After all,
we hope you agree that our 1988 concept looks pretty good for
that time, so today we could develop something that makes even
the iPod look tame. We have the ideas, but should we do it?

I had the Compaq / Hango / PJB 100 unit

I had one of the "Compaq" devices, called the Personal Jukebox (or PJB-100). Originally a 6Gb unit, someone figured out real quick how to hack it to add a 20GB drive. So in 1999, I suspect it was, I had a 20GB MP3 player. I bought it from MP3FactoryDirect.com (Hango reseller). It was great, battery life was TWICE that of my current iPod! The problem was the size of it. Luckily, I found someone who was into antiques and bought it from me for $225 last year! Needless to say, I used the $225 to buy my iPod. But besides updated drivers to work with WinXP, the iPod didn't offer a whole heck of a lot more to me than I had in 1999!! Goes to show you, marketing is king... not R&D. Better to be a fast follower than an innovator...!

[topsteve]

Another

Does the person that bought your want another? Because I'd love to sell mind.

Did no one know about this or something?

There must be some Apple induced collective forgetfulness going on. I even remember the reviews of the MPMan, if i remember rightly it would play the music too fast if the batteries were over-charged. Must have been a fun bit of kit, hehe.

MPMAN

I owned a F20, It was expandable via a smartmedia card.

I remember copying files to it using a parallel cable.

Sold it to a friend for 30quid a few years back- I think he still has it...

.

it was pretty indestructable too. The number of times I had dropped that thing and it still worked.

Still own it

And it works fine :)
The only real trouble I had was that when I bought it, it was cheaper to buy a new MPMan F20 than to buy a 32MB expansion for it.
Used it last summer a short while when my ordinary mp3 player was in for repairs.

And no, I've never had any problems with it except the horrible interface for transferring files and the software.

[Andrew Wolfe]

The real story

Actually - the Saehan product and the Rio were developed together as a joint-venture program between the two companies. The two companies jointly held both the US and Korean patents. Diamond also had an equity interest in Saehan.

Since Diamond was a much larger company with established channels and QA procedures - as well as a more complicated plastic case - it took a bit longer to ship the Rio model.

Andy Wolfe
(Former Sonicblue/Diamond CTO)

[M C]

Of course, the iPod was the first...

...disk-based MP3 player to not be the size of a brick.

That might have had something to do with its sales as well.

[jbelkin]

Apple II offered to HP

While at HP, Job's/Wozniak offered HP the Apple II - turned down.

Of course, the problem with Mp3 players was not the hardware - most tech savvy music fans knew it was a natural fit - if only someone .... ANYONE could come up with a useable interface.

I bought an mp3 disc player that required music to be put in folders marked 01_folder, 02_folder and so on - no CD album names or easy to identify marks please ...

The first mp3 player I bought would truyncate the name of the song and scroll by as fast as lightning but the encoding bit rate would be in GIANT BOLD numbers and NEVER go away ... clearly designed by engineers for engineers.

The ipod - the first and so far ONLY mp3 player that is designed by people who actually listen to music.

Wake up everyone else! It's not the portable HDD you're in! It's the massively portable music business you are in!!!

[ruykava]

obviously havent tried anything creative... ;)

ahm, i'd venture to say that creative makes devices that are just as good, if not as pretty, as apple's. and they radio reception when you get tired of listening. here in asia you hardly ever see anyone with those infamous white headphones - the reason is simply because the MARKETING is not as strong. heck, the creative zen is only slightly thicker than an iPod. most people take their tiny 512MB flash players and sync them at night with their (newly and probably illegally downloaded) music collection. trust me when i say you won't be seeing a lot of iPod Shuffles here either :p but it's true that apple's players have a solidity that feels missing in these products.

[streamOG]

Michael Robertson Gave Us The First MPMan they Sent MP3.com

and we all looked at it and were like wow that's cool but what does it do? At that time all of Michael's machines were in my partner's datacenter and Mp3.com was a single cabinet...about 1997.

Unfortunately it stopped working and there was not much support for it.

In August of Last Year Creative Sent me a Zen Portable Media Center to test with. My how times have changed. :)

[topsteve]

PJB

I have two, thats right two of Hango's PJB's they were great back in the day I still use it to power my stero and thiers was 20gigs which took apple another few years to come out with. Mind you its about 5 times the size of an ipod. Sadly I lost the battery to one, and can't find another. The PJB-100's also came with games on them (one being minesweeper)

1st MP3 player... WHY?

Who cares? Why the hype?
Just 2 go 2 Cnet news.com, which is full of ads?
No thanks.

[Fray9]

Because

No hype just an informative article about the history of a technology product on a technology news site.

Sure it must be a slow news day but this is why we are here after all isnt it? To learn things we didnt know.

And who knows? One day this little bit of trivia may.. save.. your.. life..

Ok so a little overly dramatic but you never know ;)

And besides how else would you start a series of articles on portable digital music but with a little history lesson on how it all began?

Just my thoughts ^_^

I have one of the Rio PMP 300's, and loved it and used it to the point that the buttons barely work on it now. :) I also believed it was the first, although now that I read another's comments on how the MPMan played too quickly with overcharged batteries, I remember its existance.

The iPod wasn't the first hard drive based ones, but as another comment said, it wasn't the size of a brick - I remember the one a friend of mine got, and thought wow that thing is big. That, and the interface is amongst the easiest to use on the iPod. Combined with the fact that they were the first big company to legalize music downloads, and that the iPod was the only portable player to use for that, then you have success.

I own a Diamond Rio PMP300 in mint condition -> anyone want to buy?

hi there,
i own an old Diamond Rio PMP300. it still works perfectly :-) i have also original earphones (have to look for them) and original cd's, original box, parallel data cable, and so on.. (maybe i find the belt clip too)

it really looks good, and the only negative thing is, that the sticker at the back is now without numbers and barcode ... (it disappeared sometimes)

so, do anyone wants to buy this mp3 player? -> i will put it in ebay on tuesday, wednesday or so..
(other offers: please email to me: cnet(at)dhaas.eml.cc)

--> look for seller "quarksteilchen" or just for "Diamond Rio PMP300"

Rio PMP300

Dan, Did you sell your PMP300 yet? I'd be interested if you haven't. Thanks,

Bob

If you wanna to buy MPMan F-20...

I gotta this player so if you want to own first MP3 player in the world for your personal collection or for MP3 player museum :) just e-mail me [e-mail]

[davidrools]

PMP500, 64MB, $250 in 1999

This was my first MP3 player. It had a smartmedia expansion slot! i put 128MB extra in there (i forgot how much it cost at the time). My first digital camera: 1.3MP for $500.