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keyboard_backspaceBack to PostsThe iPod 2nd Gen (Classic 2002)
January 16, 2019
Hey guys! As you probably know by now I got my hands on a super awesome iPod 2nd Gen (Yep, straight out of 2002). Check it out!

Do you see that? It’s Podzilla. Yep, I managed to compile my way to
iPodLinux! And it worked… OK. As it turns out, probably to nobodies
suprise
the performance is subpar.
Ok so, iPodLinux. The star of the show of course is the 2.4.32 uClinux,
compiled with a customized GCC 3.4.3 toolchain. Podzilla is the
custom interface that was developed for iPodLinux. Podzilla “0” was
created using MicroWindows (Nano-X), and Podzilla “2” was created using
TTK.
In my build of iPodLinux, I ended up using Podzilla 0, mostly because
Podzilla 2 was a bit too slow. The next part of iPodLinux, atleast the
way I set it up was mpd (music player daemon). mpd is a fairly popular
Linux program that, as the name implies, is a daemon that plays music!
This is where the problems start, though… the iPod 2nd gen is sadly
too slow to run mpd with any reasonable quality audio files. I tried
FLACs,
MP3s, and ended up the only files that played were sub 128 kbps MP3, and
at that barely. So yea, iPodLinux was a lot of fun to get working,
trying
to scrape up all files I needed from around the internet and finally
seeing that kernel bootup was very satisfying.

Beautiful, isn’t it? I’ll be sure to post all the source code and
compiled binaries soon(tm). I had to find all of it through the Wayback
Machine, lots
of searching, and sketchy websites!
Anyway, my iPod now runs RockBox, since it’s updated and much better at
the whole playing music things. It handles FLAC, OGG, MP3, and more at
high bitrates!

So yea, that’s pretty much it! I have an iPod. It’s actually nice too. I
can use it as a nice distraction free way to listen to music when
studying and whatnot.
The audio quality is a really good too, the Wolfson DAC and
amplifier circuitry produces a very nice sound. 2002 iPod works great
with modern electronic music! 😛

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