Hobbyist revives the beloved Winamp player into a polished physical marvel

S

Stozzy

Staff
The big picture: Teenagers and young adults of the late 1990s will remember Winamp as the de facto music player on their Windows PCs. If tinkering with electronics and fabrication is your jam, give Linamp a look. It brings Winamp to the physical plane, allowing you to touch this piece of history. It is a testament to one's passion and creativity, taking something old and giving it a new lease on life.

Winamp was released for Windows in 1997, just as MP3s were becoming mainstream. Some of the features that stood out were Winamp's unique interface with dynamic spectrum bars and the ability to change skins (a.k.a. themes). Let's not forget the signature start-up sound, which you can listen to here. The longevity of Winamp's popularity was cut short after its acquisition by AOL in 1999 and the explosion in popularity of Apple's iPod and iTunes products in the early 2000s.

Hobbyist Rodmg recreated Winamp's look and feel as Linamp, a physical media player with design roots tracing back to 1990s audio boxes. Powering the Linamp is a Raspberry Pi 4B with a 32GB SD card. It features a 7.9-inch touchscreen, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, two USB ports (Type-A and Type-C), and an ethernet port. Rodmg used PCBWay to machine the outer 1mm aluminum shell and 3D-printed the face plate, paying homage to Winamp's default skin.

Also see: What Ever Happened to Winamp?

Linamp can play music from a local SD card or a connected CD player for retro-loving music-goers. The supported digital codecs include MP3, MP4, and FLAC. Rodmg has expressed interest in bringing modern quality-of-life capabilities such as Bluetooth and Spotify streaming support in the future.

If this project is beyond your skill level, there are alternatives.

AudioWanderer recently showed off Raspinamp, a less glamorous but functional project for a Raspberry Pi-powered physical Winamp-themed MP3 player. If you want to play with the source code, you must wait until September 2024, when it will be open-source. I am looking forward to running Winamp on my FreeBSD media system.

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Hobbyist revives the beloved Winamp player into a polished physical marvel

 
Crikey guys, try not to be so Boomerish

Hate to have you guys as a modern boss, or sports coach

Their is a reason Boomer manages/coaches are going the way of dinosaurs and dodos

They kill peoples joy, ambition , confidence

Yeah a bit of a non-story, but someone who maybe learned skills they didn't have, made a nice looking product. Proud of it posted it somewhere, probably somewhere , where other people showcase their work

Then you come along to destroy their day and discourage anyone else

Does any one ever rush up to you with childish enthusiasm.
Do you withhold your masculine approval , as you think it's weak or will make the recipient weak to get praise

Rant over, it's just about an absolute:- if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all.
That saying was around long before Boomers, as it shows who you are, and is so defining of your personality type. Supportive/respectful vs condescending/negative

This is a wholesome fluff piece . glance at it, say a complement move on or ignore it for more protein

In real like, it some **** looks at me with disdain, like they are withholding their approval. I just laugh in their face ( a big F U ) , I can't stand AH and pompous gits
 
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kiwigraeme said:
Crikey guys, try not to be so Boomerish

Hate to have you guys as a modern boss, or sports coach

Their is a reason Boomer manages/coaches are going the way of dinosaurs and dodos

They kill peoples joy, ambition , confidence

Yeah a bit of a non-story, but someone who maybe learned skills they didn't have, made a nice looking product. Proud of it posted it somewhere, probably somewhere , where other people showcase their work

Then you come along to destroy their day and discourage anyone else

Does any one ever rush up to you with childish enthusiasm.
Do you withhold your masculine approval , as you think it's weak or will make the recipient weak to get praise

Rant over, it's just about an absolute:- if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all.
That saying was around long before Boomers, as it shows who you are, and is so defining of your personality type. Supportive/respectful vs condescending/negative

This is a wholesome fluff piece . glance at it, say a complement move on or ignore it for more protein

In real like, it some **** looks at me with disdain, like they are withholding their approval. I just laugh in their face ( a big F U ) , I can't stand AH and pompous gits
Click to expand...
Cry more Millennial.
 
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Wow, as an avid MP3 collector and user of Winamp since it was introduced (and still use to this day) I find this article uplifting and inspirational. I can see by the actual song on the first Winamp image thar RODMG was a 90's guy... (cool track btw).
Makes me want to consider a version of this that works in the spare 5 1/4" drive bay on my media server under my TV...
 
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The shape of the linamp reminds me of the day when 5.25" CD ROM drives have playback button and headphone jack. back then PC was so expensive our family couldn't afford one, the only time I got to play with windows 95 or windows 98 PC was in school. and most of the PCs there would have a CDROM with a headphone jack and playback button.

I would much rather see someone reverse engineer that old school CDROM drive than see this touchscreen version of winamp that doesn't seem intuitive at all.





 
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kiwigraeme said:
boomer
Click to expand...
You seem to really like this word :D
--------------------------------
I grew up with Winamp, it's a stone cold icon of that beautiful early "real" internet era - but its time has passed and (it's all about foobar 2000 now)I hope it won't suffer any corporate necrophilia attempts at resurrection.
 
Pretty neat potential retro product! I'd be more keen to see a mobile product for maybe putting in your car this is smaller and with physical buttons instead, but still with display for the time and EQ, and finally a bluetooth interface to a smartphone app where you can manage the playlist. This is would complicate the build a lot though and if it were a marketable product it would probably get a little expensive. It's still pretty cool though. I'd buy it for like $150 or something...
 
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VitalyT said:
Winamp has over 1000 UI skins designed for it, and this player doesn't support them :confused:
Click to expand...
If your complaint is legit, you might be missing the point of this device.

RudyBob said:
Beloved? LOL
Click to expand...
Yes, beloved. As in still used and treasured.

Jerry in WA said:
I like it. What's with all the complaining in the comments?
Click to expand...
Right? Daffy as a duck..

Jerry in WA said:
It's a raspberry pi project. Let's see yours.
Click to expand...
I imagine most of the people complaining here lack the where-with-all to create something so excellent.

kiwigraeme said:
In real like, it some **** looks at me with disdain, like they are withholding their approval. I just laugh in their face ( a big F U ) , I can't stand AH and pompous gits
Click to expand...
What irony is this? The above says everything it needs to. ROFL
 
zx8086 said:
Sure, if you prefer a barely-updated, NFT-aiming player
Click to expand...
Winamp isn't updated regularly, sure, but it does not NEED regular updates. It's stable, secure, fully functional and still works on EVERY version of Windows made since Windows 7. Winamp 5.6 still works on Windows 98 forward, so there's that.
zx8086 said:
over something with 20+ years of community driven efforts behind it
Click to expand...
Having used foobar recently, I was just as unimpressed as always. It's basically a Winamp copycat that doesn't copy it well and has never hit the mark. Sub-par is another expression that many, not just myself, have used to describe poo...err...foobar. I wouldn't use that media player if they offered to PAY me.

I would rather use years old Winamp(2013's version 5.6) than be forced to suffer the nonsense of foobar, and let's be fair, Winamp 5.9.2 got an update in April of last year, so it's not exactly behind the times.
 
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