Recently, my MP3 player suddenly refused to play any file. I would click on the file, and it would get stuck on “Loading…”, like so:

I eventually fixed it by re-installing Rockbox.

I started reading more about the current Rockbox news and stumbled upon Daniel Stenberg’s post about how he was leaving the Rockbox project. In particular, he closed with:

mp3 players are now already a thing of the past and will soon fall into the cave of forgotten old things our children will never even know or care about.

Unfortunately for me, I’m one of those people who (for the time being at least) enjoys having a discrete MP3 player (and a discrete e-reader incidentally). I can’t buy either of the devices I own in stores anymore. The Kobo Mini was discontinued, but at least other e-readers still exist. Very few stores sell MP3 players anymore, let alone players supported by Rockbox.

Ebay of course is still an option, but the universal problem of ‘buying old electronics that use non-removable batteries’ still remains. Another option is building my own MP3 player…

I’ll be forced to recycle both these devices when they stop working. Almost all the buttons on my Sansa have worn out, and the screen flickers and dims every so often. However, it remains part of my daily carry, and I still use it every day. I should have bought in bulk when I had the chance…