🇯🇵 Sony Data Discman: Part 1 (First Look) [TCE #0559]
80I'm a bit of a sucker for Sony and their weird data storage formats. Let's have a quick look at their Data Discman series of e-book readers from the 1990s that used the Mini CD (8cm) in a caddy as their storage format.
They are relatively inexpensive - I sourced mine through the Buyee.jp "Yahoo Japan" auction interface. The models I got are:
DD-1
DD-20
DD-S30
DD-75SP
DD-300SP
Note that the "Yahoo Japan" auction site is now apparently called "JDirectItems Auction" ... much better.
00:00 ... Intro
04:08 ... E-book formats (EB, EBXA, S-EBXA)
05:25 ... DD-20
06:10 ... DD-75SP
06:40 ... DD-S30
06:56 ... DD-300SP
07:25 ... DD-1
07:50 ... Mini CDs and their caddies
09:10 ... Testing the DD-S30 with YRRS-065 (1000語レベル英会話)
21:30 ... Testing some audio CD Singles (TM Network "Get Wild '89")
27:00 ... Final thoughts (e-book contents)
29:08 ... Channel thanks & Outro
1000語レベル英会話 ... 1000 Word Level English Conversation
I think the original Sony authoring software (SEBAS) is lost to history but someone (Dave Bradshaw) did create their own version ... sadly Dave Bradshaw is also uncontactable. Here is a mirror of his now-defunt webpage:
http://www.robotsandcomputers.com/computers/dd8h.htm
Whilst writing the video description I came across this interesting site with ISOs of some Western e-books. Apparently some of these included a Windows emulator! Will have to check them out next time.
https://huguesjohnson.com/random/sony-ebook/
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