irony inc.

This month marks the 10th birthday of the mp3 player. The MPMan F10 by Saehan Information Systems had 32MB of flash memory, could store up to 8 songs and pretty much sucked.

Saehan Information Systems MPMan F10

Inflicted upon the world at CeBIT in March 1998 the MPMan F10 was, for 6 months the only mp3 player in the whole world, making it the iPod of it’s day,

However it was quickly overshadowed by Diamond Multimedia’s Rio PMP300, by virtue of the fact that the Rio wasn’t styled like a set of bathroom scales.

Diamond Multimedia’s Rio PMP300

Saehan Information Systems was also one of the first members of Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), a group of like minded industry jackasses who’s goal was to produce the worlds first DRM. And how did that work out? SDMI went under in 2001.

The lesson  is: Industrial design is important, even for ground-breaking technology. And don’t piss off Cory Doctorow or he’ll destroy you. Through time.

[Via The Register]