It seems impossible, but an American YouTuber did it – although the operation required replacing everything but the housing.
There are probably many of us who would sometimes like to use hardware from 20-30 years ago, but a few minutes of nostalgia is not worth searching for them on the market, because let’s face it, today’s devices are much more convenient to use in everyday life. Fortunately, the American Guy Dupont did not have to deal with the purchase, as he received a bunch of 2004 iPods from a relative, and he managed to convert one of them so that it can play music from his own Spotify library. Of course, the slogan “1000 songs in your pocket” didn’t sound bad when the original iPod was introduced in 2001, but 20 years later it’s better to choose from Spotify’s 60 million collection.
Guy’s story a DigitalTrends came across us on a site called , who uploaded a video to his YouTube channel in which he explains how he managed to transform his own iPod. The video shows the operation in great detail, so if someone is more seriously interested in the matter, it might be worth visiting the detailed report on the gentleman’s Hackaday profile. During the transformation, it was an important aspect that the treatment should still be done with the help of the Click Wheel, but with the exception of this and the housing of the device, all parts were replaced.
(source: Hackaday) (+)
The heart of the system is a Raspberry Pi Zero W, to which a $40 color display was connected via a composite output, and a 1000 mAh, 3.7 volt li-on battery is responsible for the power supply. The special feature of the Raspberry Pi Zero W is that it also has a built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module: through the former, the Spotify servers treat the modified iPod as a Spotify Connect device, and the latter is essential for playing music, because although the iPod has a jack output, it was not connected during conversion. The hardware elements are controlled by the Raspberry Pi OS Lite operating system, the Openbox window manager, the Raspotify program, and Guy’s own software.
(source: Hackaday)
It is particularly interesting that the Click Wheel does not give feedback with clicks, but with a vibration motor that is also not manufactured. After reading the post and watching the video, we are also caught up in the desire to own one, but Guy probably has no plans to release the modified iPod, but based on the description, enterprising users can put together their own solution.
Source: prohardver.hu
