Embedded Linux MP3 Player - What can it do?

It can play MP3 files!

I hope most of you already figured that one out, if not I suggest you upgrade your BPU (Biological Processing Unit, a.k.a. brain). MP3, or MPEG audio layer 3, is a format for compressed digital audio that gives you near CD quality at 12:1 compression compared to raw CD-audio. MP3 files can be downloaded from the Internet (Illegal unless you already own the CD) or you can make your own MP3s on your PC.

It sits in your stereo system!

There are a lot of software MP3 players available, and most of them do an excellent job, but they all share some problems... You must have your computer turned on to listen to your favourite music, they stop playing when you reboot (a big problem with the rebootive multitasking of Windoze), they eat up CPU cycles and memory on your computer, the sound usually stops in a most annoying way when your computer is heavily loaded by something else, you have to stop the music when you need the soundcard for a game and they ain't got no f*cking remote control!

It can play files from nearly anywhere!

You can keep your files on CD-Rs, on a removable harddisk in the player or on any Windows/Linux/whatever computer connected to your home LAN (or the internet if your connection is fast enough). Just watch out for evil HiFi hackers trying to break into your stereo system and replace your favourite music with "Most (un)Wanted Bagpipe Music volume 26".

It's cheap!

There are some hardware MP3 players being developed as consumer products (you've probably heard of MP-man etc.) but most of them are damn expensive, unfinished and/or utterly useless. The E.L.M.P uses standard (and quite obsolete) PC hardware, a tiny bit of homemade electronics and free software that fits on a single floppy disk. If you can get used parts (or already have them lying around as in my case) the totalt cost should not have to be much more than a standard CD player, and that won't even have TCP/IP support... :-)

What's the catch?

Well, if you wan't one you'll have to build it yourself. You need to know your way around a soldering iron and know a little something about PC hardware. If you see an oscilloscope, two junked VCRs and a computer held together with sticky-tape when you look around the room you're probably the right kind of person for this project. :-)