The MPMan music player, manufactured by the

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

n company SaeHan Information Systems, debuted in Asia in March 1998, and was the first mass-produced portable solid state

digital audio player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, battery-powered devices ...

. The internal

flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, 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 t ...

could be expanded, but there was no support for external memory. It was delivered with a docking station. To put music into the device, the music first had to be encoded in the

mp3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

format by an encoder provided by the user, and then transferred via the

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 (paralle ...

to the docking station that connected to the portable player device.impress.co.jp - The impact created a problem!? mp3 player portable "mpman" launched
/ref> On in Japan the

Akihabara is a neighborhood in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo, Japan, generally considered to be the area surrounding Akihabara Station (nicknamed ''Akihabara Electric Town''). This area is part of the and Kanda-Sakumachō districts of Chiyoda. There is an ...

"Akibaoo~" stores in Chūō,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

started selling and models, the prices of which were (circa - today $) and , respectively. In North America, the South Korean device was first imported for sale by Michael Robertson's in mid-1998. Around the same time, Eiger Labs, Inc. imported and rebranded the player in two models, the Eiger MPMan F10, and Eiger MPMan F20. Owners could upgrade the memory from to by sending the player back to with a cheque for . A compact device, it measured tall by wide by thick and weighed a little over . The US price in 1998 for the F10 model with flash memory was circa . The was a similar model that used

SmartMedia SmartMedia is an obsolete flash memory, flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. The format mostly saw application in the early 2000s in digital cameras and audio production. SmartMedia m ...

cards for expansion, and ran on a single

AA battery The AA battery (or double-A battery) is a standard size single cell cylindrical Dry cell, dry battery. ANSI and IEC battery nomenclature gives several designations for cells in this size, depending on cell features and chemistry. The Battery nom ...

, instead of rechargeable

NiMH NIMH may refer to: * Nickel–metal hydride battery (NiMH), a type of electrical battery *National Institute of Mental Health, an agency of the United States government * National Institute of Medical Herbalists, a professional organisation in the ...

batteries.

Technical data MPMan MP F-10

*Player device: ** Memory: 16/32/64/128 (MP-F60 T12) MB ** Dimensions: 16.5 mm thick, 70 mm wide, 90 mm tall ** Weight: 65 grams (without battery) ** Signal/Noise ratio: 70 dB ** Distortion rate: 0.1% ** Maximum output: 5 mW ** Output Connector: 3.5 mm stereo

TRS connector A phone connector is a family of cylindrically-shaped electrical connectors primarily for analog audio signals. Invented in the late 19th century for tele''phone'' switchboards, the phone connector remains in use for interfacing wired aud ...

for

headphone Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an ...

s ** Frequency response: 20 – 20,000 Hz ** Power Supply: Rechargeable Battery (gum type DC 1.2V 1000mAh x 2) ** Power Supply (MP-F60 T12): (Rechargeable) AA Battery DC 1.5V x 1 ** Available colors: Gold, Pink, Silver, Skeleton black, Blue *Docking station: ** Dimensions: 30 mm thick, 133 mm x 110 mm ** Weight: 80 grams ** Power: DC 9V 400mA (AC adapter included)

Technical data MPMan MP-F60 T12

*Player device: ** Memory: 16/32/64/128 MB ** Dimensions: 16.5 mm thick, 70 mm wide, 90 mm tall ** Weight: 65 grams (without battery) ** Signal/Noise ratio: 70 dB ** Distortion rate: 0.1% ** Maximum output: 5 mW ** Output Connector: 4 pin 3.5 mm stereo

for

s and wired remote. ** Frequency response: 20 – 20,000 Hz ** Power Supply: one DC 1.5V (Rechargeable) AA Battery ** Available colors: Gold, Pink, Silver, Skeleton black, Blue Audio recording function and AM / FM radio. Memory expansion by Smart Media Cards.

Critical reception

The

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

's Associate Director of Anti-Copyright infringement initially said the MPMan had "''no function other than playing material that was stolen from record companies''". Nevertheless, he later said it was "''a unique device. It's something that we haven't seen on the market before''".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mpman Audiovisual introductions in 1998 Digital audio players South Korean inventions