Winamp turned 10 recently and suddenly I feel old. I hit the Winamp homepage this evening when I was looking for a WMA plugin, and saw that they had an anniversary edition available for download. They celebrated their birthday earlier this year and I missed it, so happy belated birthday Winamp.
I have a long history with Winamp. About as long as most people can claim. I still have the first version of Winamp that I installed on my Windows 95 Compaq a decade ago: 1.54. The exact day still appears in the “date modified” information on my current computer: September 30, 1997. My best friend at the time introduced me to this thing called an “MP3,” which I used to describe to people as “a CD quality sound file that’s not huge like WAV.” I still remember the first MP3s I downloaded. EMPD - Da Joint and Jamiroqoui - Virtual Insanity. Back then I got MP3s by going into AOL chatrooms, asking a serv to send me list of the available files, requesting songs by their number on the list, and then they’d send them to me in an e-mail. I’d leave AOL connected all night (thank God for unlimited minutes!) and let the files download. Excitedly I’d wake up in the morning and rush to my computer. “YES! Finally got Aaliyah’s ‘Are You That Somebody’ and Ginuwine’s ‘My Pony’ made it! Alright! Now I have that Blink 182 Damn’t song!” You had to work for them, but the pay-off was fantastic. Those Napster kids had no idea how easy they would get it.Napster, KaZaA (Lite), WinMX… The Wild West of MP3 file sharing. But through it all Winamp was there. It wasn’t until recently that I’ve come to grips with only having digital copies of my music. I’ve been an eMusic subscriber for the past year and am willing to buy non-DRM digital file formats. As my collection increased I outgrew Winamp a bit. I started using iTunes once I got an iPod and began using it as my primary music player once I had a computer fast enough to run it without affecting the rest of my system. It pretty much boils down to liking Cover Flow, which works for me because I like to flip through my albums visually. But though Winamp is number two on my PC, it’s still is number one in my heart.
I think I’ll download the anniversary edition of Winamp and give it a whirl. I owe it to old Nullsoft and myself. It really does whip the Llama’s ass.
Hey guys, love the site, as always.
It’s Darrin DeMarco, by the way… couldn’t find your email.
I was talking to Brendan, because I had some panels I wanted to do at Magfest, but it’s a little late in the game for him to get me decent schedule time. However, I had at least one idea I think you guys would be interested in doing. I wanted to do a video game improv workshop/performance, utilizing your guys’ talents, as well as some of the crew from X-strike and PBC. We could do some really simple games and exercises like the dating game, half-life, and party quirks, and even get into more storytelling as time permits. Let me know what you guys think, but I thought it would make a really cool addition to Magfest, and another way for audiences to participate as well. I realize it would require you guys using your panel time, so I understand if you already have plans set.
My other panel idea (which went over well at AUSA) was a women in gaming panel. I would love your input on that as well, but let me know either way. Can’t wait to see you guys there, it should be a blast!
~Darrin DeMarco