The NOMAD was a range of

digital audio player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

s designed and sold by

Creative Technology Limited Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...

, and later discontinued in 2004. Subsequent players now fall exclusively under the

MuVo The Creative MuVo (in some markets, formerly ''Creative NOMAD MuVo'') is a range of digital audio players produced by Creative Technology Limited, launched in 2002. Most models in the MuVo range use flash memory for storing data; the only excepti ...

and

ZEN Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

brands. The NOMAD series consisted of two distinct brands: * ''NOMAD'' (and later ''NOMAD MuVo'') - Players that use

flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...

. This brand eventually became the MuVo line. * ''NOMAD Jukebox'' - Players that use

microdrive The Microdrive is a registered trademark for miniature, 1-inch hard disks produced by IBM and Hitachi. These rotational media storage devices were designed to fit in CompactFlash (CF) Type II slots. The release of similar drives by other ...

s. The brand evolved into the ''ZEN'' line.

NOMAD and NOMAD MuVo

These models appear as a

USB mass storage device The USB mass storage device class (also known as USB MSC or UMS) is a set of computing communications protocols, specifically a USB Device Class, defined by the USB Implementers Forum that makes a USB device accessible to a host computing device ...

to the operating system so that the device can be accessed like any other removable disk, a

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

for example. Older MuVo devices and all Jukebox models use a custom protocol named PDE (''Portable Digital Entertainment'', a Creative internal device designation) that requires the installation of drivers before the device can be recognised by the operating system. Creative's foray into the MP3 player market began with the ''Creative NOMAD'', a rebranded

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational corporation, multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of ...

'' Yepp YP-D40'' player with 64

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes o ...

s of solid-state memory.

IEEE 1284 IEEE 1284 is a standard that defines bi-directional parallel communications between computers and other devices. It was originally developed in the 1970s by Centronics, and was widely known as the Centronics port, both before and after its IEEE ...

Parallel port In computing, a parallel port is a type of interface found on early computers (personal and otherwise) for connecting peripherals. The name refers to the way the data is sent; parallel ports send multiple bits of data at once ( parallel ...

connection *''Creative NOMAD''

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

1.1 connection *''Creative NOMAD II'' - Included FM radio and 64MB of memory via bundled Smart Media card. No internal memory. *''Creative NOMAD IIc'' - Same appearance as Nomad II, but with no FM radio and 64MB or 128MB internal memory. *''Creative NOMAD II MG'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo NX''

2.0 connection *''Creative NOMAD MuVo2'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo2 X-Trainer'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo2 FM'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo USB 2.0'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo TX'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo TX (Second Edition)'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo TX FM'' *''Creative NOMAD Muvo Micro V200'' *''Creative NOMAD MuVo Micro v100'' *''Creative NOMAD Muvo Micro N200''

NOMAD Jukebox Zen

Later NOMAD Jukeboxes used Creative's own firmware. Most players use Texas Instruments TMS320DA25x

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...

plus

digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio si ...

as their CPU and support some version of Creative's environmental audio extensions (EAX). It beat Apple Computer's hard drive music player "iPod" to market by about a year. The NOMAD Jukeboxes have varied in their use of connections. The Jukebox 3 and Jukebox Zen were unusual in their use of the older USB 1.1 standard despite their predecessor, the NOMAD Jukebox 2, having used the newer USB 2.0 standard. Part of the reason for this was the inclusion of a

FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...

connection, which is of comparable speed to USB 2.0.

1.1 connection *''Creative NOMAD Jukebox'' (''Creative Digital Audio Player'' in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

) *''Creative NOMAD Jukebox 3'' (also features a FireWire connection) * ''Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen'' (also features a FireWire connection)

2.0 connection *''Creative NOMAD Jukebox 2'' * ''Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen USB 2.0'' * ''Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen NX'' * ''Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra'' A variant of the NOMAD Jukebox was also sold as an

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

product by

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

under the name ''

Dell Digital Jukebox The Dell Digital Jukebox or just Dell DJ is a brand name for a series of digital audio players sold by the Dell corporation. Production The Dell DJs were engineered by Creative Technology and based on the same hardware and software platform as t ...

(Dell DJ)'', a USB 2.0 device. The ''Second Generation Dell DJ'' and ''Dell Pocket DJ 5'' are also OEM products from Creative. The NOMAD Jukebox shipped in the U.S. in September 2000. By January 2001, Creative reported that it had sold 100,000 units. Future versions in the Creative ZEN line exclusively use Microsoft's ''

Media Transfer Protocol The Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is an extension to the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) communications protocol that allows media files to be transferred automatically to and from portable devices. Whereas PTP was designed for downloading phot ...

'' (also known as ''

PlaysForSure Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, Digital rig ...

''), and some legacy devices have been supplied with firmware upgrades to support MTP. The first NOMAD player and the first NOMAD Jukebox use proprietary protocols, neither PDE or MTP.

Related software

Besides the ''NOMAD Explorer'' or ''MediaSource'' programs included with the devices, there are other programs which can be used to manage the player and to transfer data. Bundled software * ''Creative NOMAD Explorer'' - Software included with older NOMAD models and used to transfer music and data to the device. This has since been replaced by Creative MediaSource
''Creative MediaSource''
- A fully featured audio player for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

that also manages NOMAD devices and can be used to transfer media to the device or to synchronise playlists with the device - a feature that was unavailable in the previous ''NOMAD Explorer'' software.

Free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

For early models :*Th
NOMAD Manager Project
is a program to control the original NOMAD player under Linux :*Th
Nomad II Linux USB driver
- for using the Nomad II under Linux For NOMAD Jukeboxes :
libnjb
' is the driver underlying most of the following programs :'' Amarok'' is a music player for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

:''

Banshee A banshee ( ; Modern Irish , from sga, ben síde , "woman of the fairy mound" or "fairy woman") is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening. Her name is c ...

'' is a music player for

:
Gnomad
' is a Jukebox Manager for

:
Neutrino
' is another Jukebox Manager for

:
XNJB
' is a Jukebox Manager for

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

:
Nomadsync
' is a Jukebox synchronization tool for both

and

:
Creative Nomad Jukebox KIO::Slave
' is an integration driver for

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

:
JBHTTP
' is a webserver interface to Jukeboxes that is similar to what Notmad Explorer (see below) did for

:''Apple's iTunes'

is also capable of controlling the Nomad Jukebox.

Proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

:
Notmad Explorer
' by

Red Chair Software Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

is a (now defunct) jukebox management program for

. The program was notable for fully integrating NOMAD devices into

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

, providing a web-based interface to the device and providing search capabilities using a built-in SQL

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

References

External links

Linux and digital audio players

- November 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 ...

review of Creative's Nomad Jukebox
Sharky Extreme Nomad Review
October 2000 - Nomad Jukebox Review {{Creative Technology Digital audio players Creative Technology products Singaporean brands Consumer electronics brands Jukebox-style media players

NOMAD and NOMAD MuVo

NOMAD Jukebox Zen

Related software

See also

References

External links