If you're not familiar with these iPods, this one has a 15gb mechanical hard drive (not solid-state memory chips like modern devices - this one actually spins inside!), and it's sitting in the special dock designed for this model. Also, this model iPod had a small accessory port on the top next to the headphone jack, which is how the iTrip is plugged in. The iTrip was an accessory which allows the iPod to literally broadcast whatever song you're playing over low-power FM radio - perfect for playing your music in your car without wires, in the years before Bluetooth!
Between an incredibly busy period at work and a lot of family / scouting / holiday activities recently, I've had very little time for my retro hobbies. Knowing I shouldn't start anything very deep or complex, this week I turned my attention to a dead iPod 3rd Gen I picked up in a trade a while back.
The previous owner had let me know that it was totally dead, but threw it in as a bonus item in case I might use it for parts someday. I plugged it into a known-good USB charger with my last remaining 30-pin cable and confirmed that it was totally dead... but something about it kept tickling the back of my brain. This was the model of iPod that was selling like hotcakes when I first started working for Apple back in early 2004, and some mix of my usual retro-obsession + a little personal nostalgia made me want to try resurrecting it.
Finally, it hit me: this particular model has a funny "spanning the eras" quirk: it uses the same 30-pin-to-USB cable that many other iDevices over the years used for syncing to a computer (before Lightning took over, anyway), but in a final bit of heritage from the original 1st-gen iPods, this model will sync from USB but will only charge if connected to a FireWire charger or computer! I picked up a firewire AC adapter and cable cheap on eBay, and sure enough, the trusty little iPod sprang back to life. I also replaced the internal battery (an easy 15-minute project, thankfully), and I'm happy to report that it's working like a champ... and maybe even better, whoever was the last person to actually use it had pretty good taste in music - there's still a ton of good songs on the tiny internal 15GB hard drive!
Now I get to show my kid what "3,000 Songs In Your Pocket" feels like :-)
wowbobwow on January 5th, 2022 at 23:44 UTC »
If you're not familiar with these iPods, this one has a 15gb mechanical hard drive (not solid-state memory chips like modern devices - this one actually spins inside!), and it's sitting in the special dock designed for this model. Also, this model iPod had a small accessory port on the top next to the headphone jack, which is how the iTrip is plugged in. The iTrip was an accessory which allows the iPod to literally broadcast whatever song you're playing over low-power FM radio - perfect for playing your music in your car without wires, in the years before Bluetooth!
Between an incredibly busy period at work and a lot of family / scouting / holiday activities recently, I've had very little time for my retro hobbies. Knowing I shouldn't start anything very deep or complex, this week I turned my attention to a dead iPod 3rd Gen I picked up in a trade a while back.
The previous owner had let me know that it was totally dead, but threw it in as a bonus item in case I might use it for parts someday. I plugged it into a known-good USB charger with my last remaining 30-pin cable and confirmed that it was totally dead... but something about it kept tickling the back of my brain. This was the model of iPod that was selling like hotcakes when I first started working for Apple back in early 2004, and some mix of my usual retro-obsession + a little personal nostalgia made me want to try resurrecting it.
Finally, it hit me: this particular model has a funny "spanning the eras" quirk: it uses the same 30-pin-to-USB cable that many other iDevices over the years used for syncing to a computer (before Lightning took over, anyway), but in a final bit of heritage from the original 1st-gen iPods, this model will sync from USB but will only charge if connected to a FireWire charger or computer! I picked up a firewire AC adapter and cable cheap on eBay, and sure enough, the trusty little iPod sprang back to life. I also replaced the internal battery (an easy 15-minute project, thankfully), and I'm happy to report that it's working like a champ... and maybe even better, whoever was the last person to actually use it had pretty good taste in music - there's still a ton of good songs on the tiny internal 15GB hard drive!
Now I get to show my kid what "3,000 Songs In Your Pocket" feels like :-)
bigfoot2025 on January 6th, 2022 at 00:01 UTC »
Not only that, but you kept it out of a landfill.
rippley5150 on January 6th, 2022 at 01:18 UTC »
Nice!!!
I threw an iFlash Quad MicroSD Adapter in my iPod classic and now have 1TB of storage and rockboxed it. I never leave the house with out it.