What is the most current MP3 Player that will work on a NeXTSTEP 3.3 based NeXTcube? One that has a GUI please. If there is such a beast, a link to where it can be downloaded.
Same goes for a Ripper. An app that can read my music CD and convert it to a MP3 for playback from my hard drive using the MP3 player.
Are there apps like this available?
Thanks,
tj
I believe that there was a version of OpenAmp for OPENSTEP, and there might be something for NEXTSTEP... but the biggest hurdle you face is that you want to do all this on a 68k based system. Throughout the 90s I couldn't play MP3s on any of my 68K Macs (including my Quadra 950) because the processor was to slow to handle the decoding/playback. Even if you could get something to work, you wouldn't be able to do anything else on that system without interfering with the playback.
Remember, the trade off back then was that compressing the audio into a small file meant that more processing power was needed to play it back. Today that isn't an issue, but back then it was.
Quote from: "NeXTsociety"
Are there apps like this available?
tj
If you really want to make a try, look at MMP or XS3Mod, but I'm not sure a 68k release of MMP is available.
Did you check the NeXTFiles Archive ?
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/NEXTSTEP/Apps/Audio/There is also nxmp3play, but it hasn't any GUI, i believe it's the fastest ( and the hardest to find)
Just like RacerX told you, these current player may have not enough power on 68k hardware.
If you're patient, you may have another solution to test...
Quote from: "oneNeXT"There is also nxmp3play, but it hasn't any GUI, i believe it's the fastest ( and the hardest to find)
You can find nxmp3play here (
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/haff/NeXT/).
Quote from: "NeXTsociety"What is the most current MP3 Player that will work on a NeXTSTEP 3.3 based NeXTcube? One that has a GUI please. If there is such a beast, a link to where it can be downloaded.
Same goes for a Ripper. An app that can read my music CD and convert it to a MP3 for playback from my hard drive using the MP3 player.
Are there apps like this available?
Thanks,
tj
I added nxmp3play and mpg123 to the archives here.
http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/NEXTSTEP/Apps/Audio/I also added a GUI interface to nxmp3play called MP3Player. As others have mentioned, you may not have enough horsepower on 68k to play MP3's uninterrupted, but it's worth a try. IIRC, you can reduce sound quality to improve speed. Hope that helps.
Nitro,
Thanks for the cool GUI. I am listening to some of my mp3s on my 25 MHz NeXTStation right now. It didn't run out of the box, I think it was compiled for Japanese NeXT. I was able to build it by making the following change to the Makefile:
JAPANESE = NOI also had to unzip the mpg123.gz and nxmp3play.gz in the application bundle. Other than that, I had no issues.
I'll post a zipped binary for M68k to my idisk public folder tonight:
https://public.me.com/bkmooreBrian
Awesome news. I will try this today but need to make sure I understand what I need to do.
Am I correct I need to download 2 files.
nxmp3play from Nitros link. Install this first.
Then from bkmoores site, download and install 2nd the MP3Player.N.b.tgz
Then launch and run MP3Player app and it auto speaks and knows to work with the nxmp3play?
tj
TJ,
I posted a complete application bundle for M68k that already contains nxmp3play and mpg123 in it. So that should be all you need. If you want to play mp3s from the terminal, then you would still need to install those files into a directory in your path.
Let me know how the app works out for you. I'm glad to be of help.
Brian
Quote from: "bkmoore"TJ,
I posted a complete application bundle for M68k that already contains nxmp3play and mpg123 in it. So that should be all you need. If you want to play mp3s from the terminal, then you would still need to install those files into a directory in your path.
Let me know how the app works out for you. I'm glad to be of help.
Brian
Coolness. I am all about GUI and never do Terminal unless I have to. hehehe
Will let you know how things go.
tj
App installed now. Seems to work but no sound. This is being done on my NeXTcube Turbo with soundbox. Regular alert sounds are coming out so sound is on. Since I don't have a small SCSI drive and proper interface to transfer some MP3s from my Mac to my NeXT I emailed one 5MB song to my NeXT. It sees it, automatically applied a special speaker icon to the .MP3 file with the words .MP3 on the icon, double click the song and it launches the new MP3Player, but no sound.
Now, on mine, the play and pause buttons are greyed out once the app is launched. I click them anyway and it shows the name of the song in the list and acts like it is playing it as I here the hard drive make a few sounds but that is all.
Maybe I need to transfer a few .MP3s over to my Syquest drive and see if it does this on all of my .MP3s or not.
tj
Update.... success for me. I guess the emailed .MP3 just did not have something right with it. So, I grabbed some others from an old CD backup I had and they played.
Thanks! Awesome little app.
tj
TJ,
I just double checked my download file. It is complete, so it should work on your cube with sound.
The readme in the bundle states the app is a beta and it looks like the programmers never got around to finishing it. But it seems to work well as a bare-bones mp3 player.
I recommend trying launching the program again and with a different mp3 and letting me know if you still have problems. Too bad I don't live in your neck of the woods, otherwise I would offer to come over to see why my compiles never seem to work on your cube and to show you how to share a folder with your cube over a network so you can drag and drop transfer files.
Brian
Edit: Never mind, I just saw your last post.
Edit2: Never mind on the bug, I was just fat fingering the program.
Quote from: "bkmoore"TJ,
I just double checked my download file. It is complete, so it should work on your cube with sound. I did discover a bug however, when you click on an mp3 file, the program launches and begins playing the mp3. If you push the "grayed out" play button (third button from the left), the mp3 will stop playing, even if you repeatedly press the button again. This bug does not reproduce if you use a playlist with more than one mp3 in it however.
The readme in the bundle states the app is a beta and it looks like the programmers never got around to finishing it. But it seems to work well as a bare-bones mp3 player.
I recommend trying launching the program again and with a different mp3 and letting me know if you still have problems. Too bad I don't live in your neck of the woods, otherwise I would offer to come over to see why my compiles never seem to work on your cube and to show you how to share a folder with your cube over a network so you can drag and drop transfer files.
Brian
Edit: Never mind, I just saw your last post.
The networking part would be awesome. I will over time figure that out with the help of folks here and google. For now I have to syquest larger stuff.
But yes, a networked NeXtcube to my Macs would be sweet. One day when time permits.
Thanks,
tj
A little video I made showing the MP3Player in action. Very cool. Not bad for an older 68040 system.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj7_G6rabd4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj7_G6rabd4tj
So, we now know a decent MP3 player. Does the trick for sure. Actually, I am impressed with what it is doing for a mid early 90s system.
How about a CD ripper? One that lets us use either a built in CD or external SCSI CD to make MP3s direct from CD to the NeXT hard drive.
Anyone know of a MP3 Ripper for NeXT?
tj
Cool video! Thanks for posting it.