To anyone who remembers Y2K, Sony’s MiniDisc format will probably always feel futuristic. That goes double for Sony’s MZ-RH1, the last MiniDisk recorder ever released, back in 2006. It’s barely larger than the diminutive disks, and its styling is impeccable. There’s a reason they’ve become highly collectible and sell for insane sums on e-Bay.
Unfortunately, they come with a ticking time-bomb of an Achilles heel: the first-generation OLED screens. Failure is not a question of if, but when, and many units have already succumbed. Fortunately enterprising hacker [Sir68k] has come up with replacement screen to keep these two-decade old bits of the future alive.
Previous revisions required some light surgery to get the twin OLED replacement screens to fit, but as of the latest incarnation (revision F+), it’s now a 100% drop-in replacement for the original Sony part. While it is a drop-in, don’t expect it to be easy. The internals are very densely packed, and fairly delicate — both in the name of miniaturization. You’ll need to break out the micro-screwdrivers for this one, and maybe some magnifiers if your eyes are as old as ours. At least Sony wasn’t gluing cases together back in 2006, and [Sir68k] does provide a very comprehensive repair guide.
He’s even working on new firmware, to make what many considered best MD recorder better than ever. It’s not ready yet, but when it is [Sir68k] promises to open-source the upgrade. The replacement screens are sadly not open source hardware, but they’re a fine hack nonetheless.
We may see more MiniDisc hacks as the format’s apparent revival continues. Things like adding Bluetooth to the famously-cramped internals, or allowing full data transfer — something Sony was unwilling to allow until the RH1, which is one of the reasons these units are so desirable.
Minidisc were okay., but at 64mm diameter with a 340gb capacity (later HI-MD hit 1gb). I was always more impressed by Dataplay’s 32mm diameter 500 gb capacity. It was unfortunate that the company made two bad choices, they chose not to license their tech trying to keep control of the format, and they chose to only offer write once discs despite being able to produce rewritables. Discs lost to chips, so daraplay wouldnt have lasted anyway, but its a shame that management decisions got in the way of it gaining traction while the window was still cracked open.
340gb, do you mean gigabit (Gb) or perhaps gigabyte (GB)? I think you mean Mega?
Where did you even find those numbers?
Yeah total typo was meant to be MB not GB oops.