The
Personal Jukebox (also known as
PJB-100 or
Music Compressor) was the first commercially sold
hard diskA hard disk drive is a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to the motorized mechanical aspect that is distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk...
digital audio playerA digital audio player, sometimes referred to as an MP3 player, is a consumer electronic device that has the primary function of storing, organizing and playing audio files...
. Introduced late in 1999, it preceded the
AppleApple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and manufactures consumer electronics and computer software products. The company's best-known hardware products include Macintosh computers, the iPod and the iPhone...
iPodiPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and launched on . The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle. The iPhone can function as an iPod but is generally...
and similar players. The original design was developed by
CompaqCompaq Computer Corporation was an American personal computer company founded in 1982, and is now a brand name of Hewlett-Packard.The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto — former Texas Instruments senior managers...
Research (
SRCThe Systems Research Center was a research laboratory created by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1984, in Palo Alto, California....
and PAAD groups) starting in May 1998. Compaq did not release the player themselves, but licensed the design to
HanGo Electronics Co., Ltd.Remote Solution Co., Ltd. is an electronics manufacturer located in Gimcheon, South Korea. The company was founded in 1994 as Hango Electronics Co., Ltd. and assumed its current name in 2002....
of
South KoreaSouth Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often simply referred to as Korea, is a country in East Asia, located on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east, and North Korea to the north. Its capital is Seoul, the second largest...
.
HanGo first presented the device at the
COMDEXCOMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...
trade show on November 15, 1999. Several versions were produced in the following years, the original having 4.86
GBThe gigabyte is an SI-multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109, therefore 1 gigabyte is ....
of hard disk space and a non-backlit
LCDA liquid crystal display is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures...
. Later versions sported a
backlightA backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid crystal displays . Backlights illuminate the LCD from the side or back of the display panel, unlike frontlights, which are placed in front of the LCD...
and were fitted with larger disks up to 60 GB. The PJB can be upgraded with standard 2.5 in (64 mm)
laptopA laptop is a personal computer designed for mobile use and small and light enough to sit on one's lap while in use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device , speakers, and often including a battery, into a single...
drives with relative ease, although this operation was not intended to be carried out by the end user. It features a 24 bit
digital signal processorA digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with optimized architecture for fast operational needs of Digital Signal Processing.-Typical characteristics:...
.
Compaq Research also published a
software development kitA software development kit is typically a set of development tools that allows a software engineer to create applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...
for the unit, which enabled users to develop a variation of tools, drivers and applications for many different operating systems.
Development
The PJB was created as a personal audio appliance prototype by
DEC Systems Research CenterThe Systems Research Center was a research laboratory created by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1984, in Palo Alto, California....
and Palo Alto Advanced Development group (PAAD). The Project started in May 1998, a month before the
Digital Equipment CorporationDigital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC...
merger into Compaq was completed, and a final product was brought to market in November 1999. The PJB was the first hard-disk-based MP3 player made available to the end user (other vendors had announced hard-disk players but had not yet brought them to market).
The "100" in the "PJB-100" name was chosen from the capacity of the original 4.86 GB hard drive in the first Personal Jukebox. With this drive, the unit was expected to hold about 100 popular (45 minute) music CDs encoded at 128 kbit/s. The name was kept for the later models with bigger hard drives, even though these could store a larger number of albums.
The PJB-100 was the first MP3 portable to garner a "Milestone" product designation from
MP3 NewswireFounded in 1998, the same year as MP3.com, MP3 Newswire is the oldest active news site devoted to digital media technology. Notable for its series of essays that chronicled the rise of digital music and the Internet’s acrimonious relationship with the record industry, MP3 Newswire initially was...
, which they defined in their January 2000 review of the PJB-100 as "any product whose breakthrough innovations are so significant, they influence the future course of its industry".
Licensing, marketing and distribution
Instead of manufacturing the player themselves, Compaq licensed the design to HanGo, which called it the
"Personal Jukebox - PJB-100". The license from Compaq to HanGo was worldwide exclusive - nobody else could license the technology from Compaq during the term of the HanGo license. HanGo granted a distribution agreement to US company
Hy-Tek Manufacturing of Sugar Grove, IL in 2001. HanGo rebranded the units sold through Hy-Tek as the
"Compressor".
HanGo took the PJB-100 into mass production and introduced it to the public at the Las Vegas COMDEX in November 1999. The first units were sold in a special auction held by
MP3.comMP3.com is a web site operated by CNET Networks providing information about digital music and artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. It is probably better known for its original incarnation, as a legal, free music-sharing service, popular with independent musicians for promoting...
, with bids exceeding US$1000. Some winners received their players before the end of 1999. The first auctioned units were hand-built by the Compaq engineers who designed it, and had single-digit serial numbers.
The campaign for the PJB was "Can I? Yes, you can!". It showed a large stack of CDs next to the small unit, representing the amount of music that the device could hold. The
public relationsPublic relations is the practice of managing the communication between an organization and its publics. Public relations gains an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment...
agency in charge of press work and the product launch was Media Perspectives of Charlotte,
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties...
. Beyond the launch, the PJB apparently went without advertising or marketing.
Distributors included MP3FactoryDirect in the
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
SwissSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
-based
UHU Distribution (Portacomp AG) in Europe, and online retailer
ThinkGeekThinkGeek is an electronic commerce company and online retailer based in Fairfax, Virginia and a subsidiary of SourceForge, Inc.. It sells items that mostly cater to PC enthusiasts and other "geeky" social groups...
. The Compressor was available from Hammacher Schlemmer for a limited period.
The
firmwareIn electronics and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and data structures that internally control various electronic devices...
continued to be developed by Compaq through the life of the product.
Models
As development on 2.5 in (64 mm) hard disk drives progressed, various models of the PJB were commercially available. Later versions had a backlit
LCDA liquid crystal display is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures...
.
The following hard disk sizes were used:
- 4.86 GB
- 6 GB (June 2000, replaced 4.86 GB model)
- 10 GB (replaced 6 GB model)
- 20 GB (February 2001, replaced 10 GB model)
- 30 GB
- 40 GB (April 2002)
- 60 GB (August 2002)
The PJB was available in various colors (not all colors were available from all distributors):
- black with black buttons
- titanium with black buttons
- translucent light blue with grey buttons
- translucent dark blue with gold buttons
- translucent red (very rare and only at the beginning of distribution)
- translucent dark green with silver buttons (may not have actually been distributed)
Physical specifications
Measurements: 150×80×26mm (5.9×3.15×1.0 inches) (W×H×D)
Weight: 280
gThe gram , ; symbol g, is a unit of mass.Originally defined as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre, and at the temperature of melting ice" , a gram is now defined as one one-thousandth of the SI base unit, the kilogram, or...
(9.9
ounceThe ounce is a unit of mass with several definitions, the most commonly used of which are equal to approximately 30 grams. The ounce is used in a number of different systems, including various systems of mass that form part of the imperial and United States customary systems...
s), 304g (10.7 ounces) including battery
Note: The PJB used a 2.5" hard drive and was bulky compared to modern devices based on 1.8" or 1.0" hard disk drives or flash memory.
Audio specifications
Playback: MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (
MP3MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on...
) at
bitrateIn telecommunications and computing, bitrate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time....
s of 8 to 320
kbit/sA kilobit is an expression of grouped bits meaning 1,000 bits. Use of the term to denote a kibibit, although the most common use due to the nature of bits , is deprecated and contrary to international standard....
and a sample rate of 44.1kHz (playback support for
WAVWAV , short for Waveform audio format, also known as Audio for Windows, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an application of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in “chunks”, and thus is also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF...
is in the firmware, but is not enabled - it was used by the developers before the MP3 decoder was licensed from Fraunhofer IIS).
Audio signal-to-noise ratioSignal-to-noise ratio is an electrical engineering measurement, also used in other fields , defined as the ratio of a signal power to the noise power corrupting the signal...
(S/N): >90
dBThe decibel is a logarithmic unit of measurement that expresses the magnitude of a physical quantity relative to a specified or implied reference level. Since it expresses a ratio of two quantities with the same unit, it is a dimensionless unit...
Audio total harmonic distortionThe total harmonic distortion, or THD, of a signal is a measurement of the harmonic distortion present and is defined as the ratio of the sum of the powers of all harmonic components to the power of the fundamental frequency...
(THD): <0.1%
Frequency response: 20
HzThe hertz is a unit of frequency. It is defined as the number of complete cycles per second. It is the basic unit of frequency in the International System of Units , and is used worldwide in both general-purpose and scientific contexts...
to 20kHz
Audio output power: >50mW at 32 ohm
impedanceElectrical impedance, or simply impedance, describes a measure of opposition to a sinusoidal alternating current . Electrical impedance extends the concept of resistance to AC circuits, describing not only the relative amplitudes of the voltage and current, but also the relative phases...
Note: There seems to be a minor bug in the firmware and/or hardware design, causing a slight delay of the right audio channel.http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PJB100-mp3/message/659 A user broke it down to this:
"The specifics are that the right channel output is delayed 22.7 microseconds from the left channel output. This corresponds with the sample rate, 44.1kHz (1/44100 = 22.7 microseconds). The problem is in the order that the
digital audioDigital audio uses digital signals for sound reproduction. This includes analog-to-digital conversion, digital-to-analog conversion, storage, and transmission. In effect, the system commonly referred to as digital is in fact a discrete-time, discrete-level analog of a previous electrical analog...
data is conveyed from the
DSPA digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with optimized architecture for fast operational needs of Digital Signal Processing.-Typical characteristics:...
to the
DACIn electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device for converting a digital code to an analog signal ....
, and it could probably be corrected with a little bit of hardware. I verified these timings with an oscilliscope."
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PJB100-mp3/message/663
The user who originally mentioned this has posted some theoretic fixes to this problem, requiring modifications to the hardware. Thus far, no working technical solution to this issue has been documented or been made available, though.
Digital signal processor (DSP)
The "heart" of the PJB is its Digital Signal Processor. It controls the hard-drive, buttons, LCD, USB interface and handles MP3-decoding for playback. The PJB uses a 24 bit
MotorolaMotorola, Inc. is an American, multinational, Fortune 100, telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It is a manufacturer of wireless telephone handsets, and also designs and sells wireless network infrastructure equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal...
56309 DSP running at 33 MHz. The MP3
codecA codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, coder-decoder'.Historically a modem was a contraction of modulator/demodulator and converted...
(which is about 2 MB in
assemblyAssembly languages are a family of low-level languages for programming computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other integrated circuits. They implement a symbolic representation of the numeric machine codes and other constants needed to program a particular CPU architecture...
DSP code) was licensed from
Thomson-Science:*thomson , a unit for mass-to-charge ratio, symbol: Th*Thomson effect, named for William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, which is the heating or cooling of a current-carrying conductor when a temperature gradient is present-Places:...
and
Fraunhofer IISThe Fraunhofer Society is a German research organization with 59 institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science . It employs over 12,500, mainly scientists and engineers, with an annual research budget of about €1.2 billion...
.
Memory
The PJB has 12 MB of
DRAMDram or DRAM may refer to:As a unit of measure:* Dram , an imperial unit of mass and volume* Armenian dram, a monetary unit* Dirham, a unit of currency in several Arab nationsOther uses:* Dynamic random access memory...
and 1 MB of
flash memoryFlash memory is a non-volatile computer storage that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It is a technology that is primarily used in memory cards and USB flash drives for general storage and transfer of data between computers and other digital products...
.
The DRAM is used to buffer data (between 8 and 12 minutes of music, depending on the bitrate used for encoding) from the hard disk during playback. The buffer allows the disk to be run only intermittently, preserving battery life. When the hard-disk is stopped, battery life is preserved; the ramp-loaded heads also retract from the disk surface, helping to reduce the possibility of damage.
The flash memory houses the firmware as well as the
bootstrapIn computing, booting is a bootstrapping process that starts operating systems when the user turns on a computer system. A boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the computer performs when power is switched on...
.
Communication interface
To up- and download data, the PJB is equipped with a USB 1.1 Type B connector. Inside is a Philips PDIUSBD12 USB peripheral controller, which averages a raw throughput of about 400 kB/s. Early prototypes used
EthernetEthernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the ether...
instead of USB for data transmission. USB was used in production models because it was more common than Ethernet on standard home computers in 1998.
Display
The PJB's LCD has a
resolutionThe display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by all different factors in cathode ray tube and flat panel or projection...
of 128×64
pixelIn digital imaging, a pixel is the smallest item of information in an image. Pixels are normally arranged in a 2-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots or squares. Each pixel is a sample of an original image, where more samples typically provide more-accurate representations of the...
s (2:1
ratioA ratio is an expression that compares quantities relative to each other. The most common examples involve two quantities, but any number of quantities can be compared. Ratios are represented mathematically by separating each quantity with a colon – for example, the ratio 2:3, which is read as the...
) at a diameter of 3 inches (7.62 mm). Later versions of the PJB also featured a
backlitA backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid crystal displays . Backlights illuminate the LCD from the side or back of the display panel, unlike frontlights, which are placed in front of the LCD...
display (the backlight comes on when the unit is powered on, or a button is pressed and turns off automatically after a few seconds). The character set the PJB uses internally is Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1), with some minor variations. One of the Compaq developers stated that "it's missing some of the symbols in the range 160 to 255 (because I got bored when I was creating them :-). Upper case accented characters are rendered unaccented, because that looks better within the font's 9 pixel height. There are some strange glyphs in the range 0 to 31, used for the various symbols on the screen."
Hard drive
While flash players could store between 32 and a maximum of 128 MB at the time, the first PJB could store 4.86 GB of music. While the PJB-100 was updated as bigger drives became available, it was also possible for end users to replace the hard drive (although voiding the warranty in that case). Not every 2.5" drive can be used in every PJB, and some that can be used drain the battery very quickly.
A minor modification (a green or blue wire soldered to a specific place on the mainboard, see
this picture) was made in later-model PJBs. The most important factor for models not having this modification is that the drive used must have separate logic and motor pins (pins 41 and 42, both are used for powering on the drive). While the logic pin is always supplied by the PJB, the power pin is only supplied when there is need to spin the drive up and buffer data into memory. If the pins are internally shorted together, the drive still consumes power when powered off, hence draining the battery very quickly. Models having the modification seem to have fewer problems with higher power consumption. The modification was HanGo's solution to the problem that fewer and fewer new drives were being designed with this split logic/motor pin-assignment. It is not easy to tell which units have the modification. It has been suggested that models that came with a 20 GB IBM/Hitachi drive have the modification, while earlier models do not.
Detailed instructions on how to modify the motherboard to enable using any of the hard drives listed below (and maybe a good number of others more) can be found
here (PDF file at the pjb-100 Yahoo! group, free registration or a Yahoo! account necessary).
Physically, only drives with a height of 9.5 mm fit into the PJB (although the older 12.5 mm drives are not produced anymore today anyway). Finally, large
cacheIn computer science, a cache is a collection of data duplicating original values stored elsewhere or computed earlier, where the original data is expensive to fetch or to compute, compared to the cost of reading the cache. In other words, a cache is a temporary storage area where frequently...
sizes (above 2 MB) seem to consume more power as well. Drives with higher rotation-speeds (5,400 or 7,200 opposed to 4,200 RPM) consume more power, since the drive needs more power to spin up - this does not improve anything in the PJB and will just drain the battery faster. The manufacturer used drives by
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM, is a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, Town of North Castle, New York, United States. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating...
(later
Hitachiis a Japanese multinational corporation specializing in high-technology and services headquartered in Marunouchi Itchome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan...
) and the
Toshibais a Japanese multinational conglomerate manufacturing company, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company's main business is in infrastructure, consumer products, electronic devices and components.Toshiba-made Semiconductors are among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders...
MK-GAx series.
The following drives are reported to work (although not all work on the units without the modification mentioned above):
- IBM Travelstar DJSA-220 (20 GB)
- Hitachi DK23CA-20 (20 GB)
- Hitachi DK23DA-20F (20 GB) (original delivered in PJB)
- Toshiba MK-2016GAP (20 GB)
- Toshiba MK-2016MAP (20 GB)
- Toshiba MK-3017GAP (30 GB)
- Toshiba MK-4018GAP (40 GB)
- Toshiba MK-4018GAS (40 GB)
- Toshiba MK-6021GAS (60 GB)
- Toshiba MK-8025GAS (80 GB)
- Toshiba MK-1031GAS (100 GB) (one user reported having this hard-drive working in his unit on January 12, 2005)
Buttons/controls
The PJB has 6 buttons on the front:
- left/previous/rewind
- right/next/forward
- up
- down
- play/pause
- stop/power off
Volume is adjusted by a wheel on the unit's right side, using a
digitalA digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
mechanism (it can be turned indefinitely). It also is possible to click or push the wheel, which pauses playback and turns the unit off after about one minute. When the unit is powered off and the wheel is pressed for a few seconds, playback resumes. This also works when the buttons are locked, in case the main controls cannot be easily accessed.
On the same side is also a small switch, which locks the unit’s controls (except for the wheel).
Between the wheel and lock switch is a standard 3.5 mm jack for connecting headphones, speakers etc. Above the lock switch is the jack for the provided AC adapter. Above that is the USB-B-connector used for up- and downloading data onto the unit.
Battery and power supply
The PJB is not powered by regular dry cell batteries like most other players at the time of its development, but by a provided HanGo (probably rebaranded
Sanyois a major electronics company and member of the Fortune 500 whose headquarters is located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo targets the middle of the market and has over 324 offices and plants worldwide, together employing more than 11,000 employees.On November 2, 2008, Sanyo and...
, hence the same ID) UR-110 3.6
VThe volt is the SI derived unit of electromotive force, commonly called "voltage". It is also the unit for the related but slightly different quantity electric potential difference...
/1350
mAThe ampere is the SI unit of electric current. The ampere, in practice often shortened to amp, is an SI base unit, and is named after André-Marie Ampère, one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism....
Lithium ion batteryLithium-ion batteries are a type of rechargeable battery in which lithium ions move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode during discharge, and from the cathode to the anode during charge.Lithium-ion batteries are common in portable consumer electronics because of their high...
. HanGo also sold a more powerful 1600 mA battery to be used in the PJB.
Some suitable replacements for the original battery (which is no longer being manufactured/distributed by HanGo or Sanyo) are the higher-capacity Sanyo UR-111 (3,7V/1700mAh) as well as the
Sharpis a Japanese electronics manufacturer, founded in September 1912.It takes its name from one of its founder's first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1915. Since then it has developed into one of the leading electronics companies in the world...
models AD-MS10BT (3,6V/1850mAh) and MD-MS200. It is still possible as of July 14, 2007 to buy a UR-110 2000 mA from various battery distributors. Since li-ion batteries tend to lose the ability to hold full charge after some years, even buying a stocked version of the original battery is discouraged, since it will very likely not be able to perform very well to begin with, having been in stock for at least three years or more.
In the past, some users have repeatedly reported problems when using other-branded, higher-capacity batteries with some hard-drives having a cache of 8 MB or more, although a reason could not be determined and it apparently only happens with certain combinations of hardware revisions/hard-drives/batteries.
The PJB includes a 5V
power supplyPower supply is a reference to a source of electrical power. A device or system that supplies electrical or other types of energy to an output load or group of loads is called a power supply unit or PSU...
which charges the battery and also enables playback without a battery in the unit at all. The charging control circuit for the battery is built into the PJB itself, not the power supply, so the use of a replacement power supply requires only the proper voltage (5
VThe volt is the SI derived unit of electromotive force, commonly called "voltage". It is also the unit for the related but slightly different quantity electric potential difference...
DCDirect current is the undirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also be through...
), polarity (center +) and sufficient current capacity (2.5
AThe ampere is the SI unit of electric current. The ampere, in practice often shortened to amp, is an SI base unit, and is named after André-Marie Ampère, one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism....
).
Included accessories
Compared to other players, the PJB included a large number of useful high-quality accessories. Details varied from distributor to distributor, but UHU/Portacomp AG included:
- Koss Porta Pro headphones
- Leather case with belt clip
- 5 V power supply with converters for European and American power outlets (except UK)
- 1350 mW/3.6 V Li-Ion battery (see the battery section
- USB 1.1 compliant A-B connector cable
- Cinch-Audio cable 3.5 mm to RCA
- Manual (in German and English)
- CD with drivers and Jukebox Manager software (Windows, Mac OS/OS X, Linux)
Optional accessories
Various accessories were offered by different distributors (among them various headphones and speakers, also for use with other audio hardware than the PJB and replacements for the included accessories):
- 1600 mAh Li-Ion Battery
- Waterproof neoprene
Neoprene or polychloroprene is a family of synthetic rubbers that are produced by polymerization of chloroprene. It is used in a wide variety of applications, such as in wetsuits, laptop sleeves, orthopedic braces , electrical insulation, liquid and sheet applied elastomeric membranes or...
bag for use of the PJB at a beach or pool
- Audio-cassette adapter for playback on car/home stereos
- Swan-neck car-holder
- Various magnetic mounts to attach the PJB within a car
- Power-supply-adapters for car cigarette-lighters
Features and version history
The latest firmware version, which surfaced in December 2003 is v2.3.3-alpha; the latest stable version is v2.3.2, introduced in mid-2001. Initially, the functions provided by the player were basic: when music was played back, selecting another track would immediately start this track and stop the current one; playlists had to be created on the computer; files could only be uploaded to the PJB, but not downloaded back to the computer. New firmware versions came out regularly, but were mostly bug fixes with very few new functions introduced.
Later firmware versions added some of the most requested features:
- Files could be transferred from player to PC
- The ability to browse without interrupting playback
- Some (hidden) games were added (see easter eggs)
- Temporary playlists can be created during playback with the 2.3.3-alpha firmware, a convenience for DJ'ing with the unit.
The following versions of the firmware were available:
- v2.1.6 (original version)
- v2.1.8 (September 6, 2000)
- v2.1.10 (March 17, 2001)
- v2.2.0 (April 3, 2001)
- v2.3.0 (May 19, 2001)
- v2.3.1 (June 5, 2001)
- v2.3.2 (June 19, 2001)
- v2.3.3-alpha (December 30, 2003)
Sets, discs, tracks
All data on the PJB is organized hierarchically in three levels, called
Sets,
Disc and
Tracks. There can be a number of Sets each including a number of Discs, each including a number of Tracks. What each represents is completely up to the user. A Set could be the name of the artist, a character, a genre, the title of a sampler or a soundtrack, etc. Following this example, a disc could be the name of the album/single or of the artist.
User interface and navigation
The PJB's display is divided into seven lines and looks like this:
The lines are selected with the up/down buttons while Sets, Discs, Tracks and various playback options are selected with the Left/Right buttons. The Play and Order options interact with each other. This Track/Repeat will play the current track indefinitely. Everything/Shuffle will randomly play every track on the unit, which is one of the favorite modes with many PJB owners. One of the lacking features of the PJB is a proper equalizer, instead it is just possible to increase the bass level in two steps.
Later versions of the firmware include
Browse-while-Playing and creating
Playlists-on-the-Fly. Both is achieved by pressing and holding down the Play button. This brings up a new line with following options: Play now, Add to playlist, Add to playlist and play, Play after current track, Play after current disc. Discs and Tracks can be added to playlists. If any of the playlist options is selected, a temporary Set "Online Playlists" is created as the last set, and any selected disc is added as Disc. Selected tracks are added to an "Online Playlists" Disc within this Set.
File system and table of contents (TOC)
The PJB's disk is not formatted as
FATFile Allocation Table or FAT is a computer file system architecture now widely used on most computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras.It was developed by Bill Gates and Marc McDonald during 1976–1977....
or
FAT32File Allocation Table or FAT is a computer file system architecture now widely used on most computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras.It was developed by Bill Gates and Marc McDonald during 1976–1977....
as is the case with most of the players that were released later, and enables those to be mounted as another drive in an operating system. Instead, a
unique file system is used, which, while losing the mounting ability, is optimized for the structure of MP3 files (having a cluster size of 128 kB, which equals about 8 seconds of 128-kBit-encoded MP3-music). Therefore managing actions like defragging become unnecessary.
Another option this sort of internal file management brings, is also one of the most interesting and useful of the PJB:
Cue points and
gapless playbackGapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks without intervening silence or clicks at the point of the track change. Gapless playback is common with compact discs, gramophone records, or tapes, but is not always available with other formats that employ compressed...
. For instance, if the user rips and uploads a live CD, it sounds like one continuous stream if played on a CD-player. On the other hand. classic computer file systems and some of the design weaknesses of the MP3-format would now force a "gap" of silence to be heard between the single tracks. The PJB allows (if the right method of uploading is used) to store all of these tracks as one continuous stream. Single cue points are used to mark the beginnings and ends of what the PJB display as Tracks. Therefore, if the Disc is played back sequentially, the record will sound as intentioned - gapless.
The file system allows the linking of Tracks into various Discs/Sets. Therefore, each track is ideally only stored once on the disc and recurring occurrences of it (for example in playlists or samplers) are just links to the original file. This may help to preserve a good amount of disk space and allows for more tracks to be stored on the disk.
All of this info is stored in the TOC (table of contents). The TOC is stored in a human-readable text-format and can be downloaded, changed with a text editor and re-uploaded to the PJB again. A copy of the TOC is always stored on the unit as well, so errors and damage to the original TOC can usually be fixed without the user having to worry about it (in most cases, users don't even notice anything having been wrong).
The TOC and additional memory used to set up data and navigation structures must not exceed 1436 kB.
Easter eggs/games
Later versions of the firmware (from 2.3.1 up) include an easter egg screen, when a certain combination of buttons is being pressed (the exact combination differs between versions). In this screen, the user can choose between three different options:
- play the game Minesweeper
Minesweeper is a single-player computer game. The object of the game is to clear an abstract minefield without detonating a mine. The game has been written for many system platforms in use today, including the Minesweeper for the Windows platform, which has come bundled with versions of the...
- play the game Sokoban
is a transport puzzle in which the player pushes boxes around a maze, viewed from above, and tries to put them in designated locations. Only one box may be pushed at a time, and boxes cannot be pulled...
- display the credits (of the developer team at Compaq Corporate Research)
The user can also choose whether the music playback should continue, or if special sound effects should be used.
Software development kit
The original developers at Compaq Research designed an
SDKA software development kit is typically a set of development tools that allows a software engineer to create applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...
(Software Development Kit) for the unit and published it under the
Open SourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
GPLThe GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project....
license in 2000.
Drivers
The PJB does not integrate itself as a USB
mass storageIn computing, mass storage refers to the storage of large amounts of data in a persisting and machine-readable fashion. Storage media for mass storage include hard disks, floppy disks, flash memory, optical discs, magneto-optical discs, magnetic tape, drum memory, punched tape and holographic memory...
device into modern operating systems. Special drivers are required to make the operating system recognize an attached PJB. Drivers for
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
and
Mac OSMac OS is the trademarked name for a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
were included, while drivers for
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
were developed by the open source community.
Jukebox Manager (Windows, Mac OS)
The included management tool for the PJB is the Jukebox Manager (the latest Windows version is v1.5.6). It is a pretty basic application which can create/delete/manage Sets, Discs and Tracks (when uploading, the user can choose which
ID3ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself....
-tag will represent which level). It can also encode CDs directly onto the PJB and query the
CDDBCDDB, short for Compact Disc Database, is a licensed trademark of Gracenote, Inc. It is a database for software applications to look up audio CD information over the Internet. This is performed by a client which calculates a unique disc ID and then queries the database...
for the proper disc/track information. Finally it can update the firmware. If manipulating some values in the Windows Registry, a hidden menu appears, which can be used to debug and in some cases repair a damaged TOC. The Jukebox Manager does not make use of some of the firmware’s later features, such as downloading tracks back to the computer and does not provide advanced features such as mass-uploading, synchronizing or creating playlists from
M3UM3U is a computer file format that stores multimedia playlists. It was originally implemented in Winamp, although it is now supported by many applications....
-playlists.
pjbExploder (Windows)
Development of the pjbExploder was started by Enea Mansutti in 2001 and later continued by Michael Hotchin. It is an open source project under the GPL, with its development page residing on
SourceForgeSourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
. It is one of the few projects for the PJB which still is actively developed. The latest version currently available is v1.0.47 (Nov 09 2006).
This software has the same uploading capabilities of Sets/Discs/Tracks as the Jukebox Manager, but also provides additional features, such as mass-uploading, synchronizing, a playlist manager, creation of CUE-sheets, advanced search and sorting options, uploading of non-MP3 data files as well as the ability to re-download tracks to the PC or the playback of tracks on the PJB via the computer's audio hardware in real-time.
MP3Loader (Windows, discontinued)
MP3Loader was a
sharewareThe term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a...
project by Robert Valentino and was popular for its mass-uploading capabilities, either representing fixed directory structures as Set/Discs/Tracks, or using M3u-playlists to generate the structure on the PJB.
Jukemon (Mac OS X)
A tool for
Mac OS XMac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
that was developed to replace the Jukebox Manager, which would only run on the classic Mac OS. It also implements the PJB's USB drivers, so when using Jukemon, no additional drivers for the PJB are required.
OpenPJB/PJB Tools/pjbsdk
The OpenPJB/pjbsdk Project on SourceForge tries to provide a base for all (open source) PJB applications, while also further developing the SDK. They also provide the PJB Tools, a collection of tools for the command line of various operating systems, published under the GPL (including documentations and a modified version of the SDK).
Linux projects
There are also various
Linux projects operating on SourceForge (some under the banner of the OpenPJB project). These range from Jukebox-Manager-like applications with a GUI for various
window managerA window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment...
s to projects making the PJB's file system mountable as a drive in Linux. Some of the projects include:
- Jukebox Manager (KDE)
- GNOME/GTK+ GUI Personal Jukebox Manager (GNOME)
- Emacs PJB Manager
- PJB File System for Linux (Kernel 2.3/4, 2.6)
- PJB VFS module (for use with Nautilus)
- pjmirror (written in Perl to synchronize the PJB with data on the PC)
General information, discussion and support
- The new and improved PJB-100 User Group at Yahoo! Groups - largest active community, some original developers post there, support, discussion, questions, file section includes all of the firmware, manuals and documentation for the PJB (free registration required, new posters must be approved by moderator to keep the group spam free)
- Original PJB-100 User Group at Yahoo! Groups - Active from 2000-2005 (closed because the original moderators had left and spam was becoming a problem) it contains more than 17,000 messages and a great number of files (drivers, firmware, manuals, pictures and some very interesting programs and code-snippets) on or for use with the PJB
- PJB-100 official development site at Compaq Research
- PJB-100 Info Site - includes FAQs, manuals, photos, links to official reviews and software projects
- Ultimate PJB-100 FAQ
- Motherboard modification instructions - Instructions on how to modifiy the PJB's motherboard so that larger hard-drives work in older units (at the pjb-100 Yahoo! Group, PDF format)
PJB-100 software projects, drivers, firmware and developer infos
Distributors (just support and accessories these days)
Articles/reviews about or including info on the PJB-100
- Video interview with a HanGo representative from the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a non-public trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. At the show, many previews of products are introduced, or new products are announced. The show is held at the Las Vegas...
(CES) in Las VegasLas Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, the seat of Clark County, and an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, fine dining, and entertainment. Las Vegas, which bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, is famous for the number of...
about the PJB-100 (WMV format)
- MP3-Portable speichert 70 Stunden Musik - October 29, 1999. Article from German heise
Heise may refer to:*Bob Heise, a US professional baseball player.*Geoff Heise, a Hawaiian actor.*Heinz Heise, a German publishing house.*Peter Heise, a Danish composer.*William Heise, a US film director....
Newsticker on the PJB-100 (in German)
- 1200 Song MP3 Portable is a Milestone Player - January 11, 2000. MP3 Newswire
Founded in 1998, the same year as MP3.com, MP3 Newswire is the oldest active news site devoted to digital media technology. Notable for its series of essays that chronicled the rise of digital music and the Internet’s acrimonious relationship with the record industry, MP3 Newswire initially was...
review of PJB-100 from Archive.com
- Introducing the world's first MP3 player - January 21, 2005. CNET
CNET Networks, Inc. was a media company based in San Francisco, California, United States. The company was co-founded in 1993 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie. It was acquired by CBS Corporation in 2008 and its properties were merged into CBS Interactive...
article on the PJB-100 being the world's first 'iPodiPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and launched on . The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle. The iPhone can function as an iPod but is generally...
'
- How HP invented the market for iPod resellers (HP could have capitalized on using the PJB design) - January 19, 2004 article by Ashlee Vance at The Register
- A heart-warming episode on one of the first-ever PJBs - December 17, 2004, by jonathan on engadget.com