I was digging around in a junk drawer and came across my old RCA Lyra mp3 player, so I decided to see whether it still works. I have the old parallel port reader somewhere, and I’m sure I have the software that came with it (also somewhere), but a CF card is a CF card and I thought I could make it work with my Lexar reader. I couldn’t remember the model (not that RCA would still support it–it’s one of their first gens), but I found a zip file online that had the PMP folder for an RD2201 with the executables in it to read the files, and I’ve got it “sort of” working. It doesn’t read mp3 files (just pops and crackles), but will read Windows Media files, so I know it works. Now I just have to figure out which model it is of the three that look like that, and if it needs an mp3 executable different from the one I have, I’ll need to find a copy. I suppose I could drag out the reader and software, install it (I think there’s an XP update for it–I recall seeing that somewhere, I think), and once I have the right executables for my model, it should be as simple as leaving the PMP folder alone and changing the mp3 files themselves, which I can do in Ubuntu with the card reader. I never did use it that much and it’s not like a new one would be cost-prohibitive, but that’s not the point. The point is tinkering. 🙂

I wish it were March already. I want to build my new puter. I’ve decided on AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (old enough to be cheaper, new enough to be fairly fast), and I can get a good deal on one that comes with a Gigabyte board. I want a new case with a 450w power supply, need a new cooling fan to fit the new processor, need new RAM because I think at least one of of mine may be going bad (note to self–run memcheck), and need a new CD burner. My current HDs are okay (though I wouldn’t kick a 300 GB out of my case), DVD burner’s relatively new, sound card isn’t six months old yet, and the video card I just got for Christmas. Well, I suppose I should hope that P’s “profitable year bonus” is as much as it was last year. Yes, that would be helpful.

AHA!! The caffeine kicked in and the old brain cells got cranking. It’s an RD2202; the players are all the same, but the 2201 shipped with a 32 MB card, 2202 with a 48 MB card, and (I think) the 2204 shipped with 64 MB. I don’t remember whether the limit is 128 or 256 MB, but I don’t care, I just want to see whether it’ll work again.