The Psion Wavefinder was a computer peripheral for receiving

digital audio broadcasting Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. Types In digital broadcasting syst ...

radio signals, made by Psion. It attached via

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 v ...

to a personal computer, and had no loudspeakers or controls of its own, with only a flashing light on the device. Psion hoped it would become a design classic. The Wavefinder was released on 17 October 2000, and gave access to both DAB audio and DAB Data services. The WaveFinder software had the ability to receive the 'Broadcast Website' service which some DAB broadcasters experimented with during the early days of digital radio - displaying HTML content provided by the broadcaster in the users' web browsers. The device initially retailed for £299 (at the time the cheapest digital radio on the UK market) and was bundled with new PCs sold by Dixons, but it was quickly discounted, retailing at £49.99 by that December, and was no longer produced by 2002. Psion ended support in 2004. The Wavefinder had frequent software problems, and an

unofficial patch An unofficial patch is a patch for a piece of software, created by a third party such as a user community without the involvement of the original developer. Similar to an ordinary patch, it alleviates bugs or shortcomings. Unofficial patches do no ...

called WaveLite was released in 2001. The Wavefinder had widely reported problems with the USB drivers in

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

Service Pack 2. It will work with

with SP3. There are reports that the Wavefinder works in Vista. It is not compatible with

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

computers, except perhaps through the use of a PC emulator or

virtualisation In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, sto ...

solution. There is a driver and command line application 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 ...

, OpenDAB, that describes itself as "experimental". The unregulated power supply which is supplied with the Wavefinder has an output which can go up to 19 volts, this can cause the Wavefinder to develop faults. It is therefore recommended to use a regulated 12 volt supply.

References

External links

An unofficial FAQ

h2g2 article

Digital radio Computer peripherals Products introduced in 2000 {{compu-stub