This is my first mobile MP3 player from Creative Technology Ltd, it was released about 1999. Although it was large and heavy - with 4 AA batteries onboard - it was kind of a milestone at the time. And incredibly expensive. In todays money, perhaps 400 Euro (450$)! The revolutionary feature was a 10GB HDD inside, which seemed like gigantic at the time for a mobile MP3 player.
This is a view of the inside, the HDD (and lots more electronic) is on the other side of the circuit board.
I remember it to be very temperamental in use. Sometimes it would just crash and reboot without warning, and the organizing of the files (it did already use the meta data in the MP3 files!) had much room for improvement.
Also, the uploading of files from a PC, via the USB 1.1 connection, took ages compared to todays standards.
But - it was the cool thing to have then, kind of like the latest Apple iPhone today.
May it rest in peace... :)
outside image source: Wikipedia
internals image: myself
