Tag Archives: music

Speaking of iPods

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I’m glad I didn’t sell my old iPod; here’s why.

My new helicopter has an audio-in jack so you can plug in a portable tape player, CD player, or MP3 Player. My old helicopter also had a jack like that, but it was an aftermarket installation and didn’t play in stereo. I know that sounds like I’m being pretty picky, but it also had a tendency to drop out one of the channels on some stereo music so you didn’t hear all the instruments/vocals, even in mono. Better than nothing, I guess, but not nearly as good as real stereo.

The headsets in the helicopter’s front seats are Bose Generation X. They cost a small fortune (which is why I didn’t get four of them) and I don’t think they’re worth what they cost, but they are the best. And they are stereo.

So I have a stereo line-in jack and stereo speakers.

And a very new iPod Photo with over 2,000 songs on it.

It makes sense to use the iPod in the helicopter, right? Well, unfortunately, the iPod Photo doesn’t seem to like the helicopter. I’ll plug it in and get it playing. 5 or 7 or 11 songs later, the iPod freezes up, right in the middle of a song. Dead in the water. Won’t shut off, won’t reset, won’t work at all. The only way to bring it back to life is to plug it in at home and use one of the reset procedures. I’ve wiped it clean and reloaded the songs and music several times. The problem persists.

I think I know the reason for the problem. The iPod seems to be able to sense when something is connected to it. When I plug in that RCA jack, the iPod turns itself on. So something’s coming down the cable to the iPod, saying, “Hey, wake up!” The iPod obliges.

One of the features of the helicopter’s audio system is that it automatically cuts out audio when the radio goes on. Say I’m flying along, listening to Pink Floyd while my communications radio is tuned into the Wickenburg Unicom frequency. When someone else talks on that frequency, Pink Floyd is shut off until he’s done talking. My other helicopter worked this way, too. It’s the way I want it to work: after all, isn’t it more important to hear what’s going on around me than some music?

I always assumed that it cut out the music by just tripping some circuit. I don’t know electronics. For all I know, what I just said might be pure nonsense. The point is, I was pretty sure it didn’t cut out the music by telling the iPod to shut up.

Evidently, however, some kind of signal must be coming down that wire to the iPod. And the iPod is getting confused by it. And when it gets really confused, it just freezes up.

I gave this some thought. I realized that my old, original, 5GB iPod never seemed to know when you plugged something into it. Perhaps it would work without getting confused and freezing up.

So I charged it back up — its battery doesn’t last long off the charger these days — updated the songs, and took it for a flight. And guess what? It worked fine.

I’m glad. On long cross-country flights, it’s nice to have music. And it’s nice to not to have to resuscitate an iPod after every flight.

Clash of the Technologies

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I teach an old computer new tricks.

I have a 20th Anniversary Mac. I bought it about six months after they were released and got a pretty good deal on it. It sits on a table in my living room, a piece of functional art. It runs System 7.6 — if anyone can remember that. The cool thing about this computer — other than the fact that both a floppy disk drive and CD ROM drive are built into the monitor — is that it has a Bose sound system. It also has a stereo receiver and, somehow, my cleaning lady has learned how to tune in Mexican music while she works.

Anyway, I bought an iPod Photo a few months back so I could write about it. I really don’t need an iPod Photo, but once you have something like that, you try to come up with ways to make it useful. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could attach the iPod to the Mac, play music through those Bose speakers, and show photos onscreen?

Remember, the 20th Anniversary Mac is old technology. It dates back to ADB, Serial, and SCSI ports. There wasn’t any USB or Firewire in those days. But it does have an S-Video port and a microphone-in port. So I started experimenting.

The iPod Photo’s dock includes both an S-Video port and an audio line-out port. I didn’t have an S-video cable with the multi-pin connectors on both sides. But I did remember someone saying that an ADB cable’s pins are the same configuration as an S-video cable. So I took an old keyboard cable from the office, brought it home, and used it to connect the Mac to the dock. Then I took a standard RCA-type stereo cable and connected it from the line-out port on the top of the iPod to the Mac. (When I connected that cable from the dock to the Mac, I had no volume control and I still can’t figure out why.)

I fired up the two devices and set up a slide show. The iPod’s music immediately played through the Mac’s Bose speakers. It sounded really good at any volume. But to get the video to show up, I had to fire up an application that comes with the 20th Anniversary Mac. I think it’s called Apple Video Player. It enables me to use the built-in TV tuner (which doesn’t work here on the edge of nowhere) or to take video from an external source. It recognized the iPod Photo’s signal and displayed the images onscreen as a slide show. The only drawback: I had to set monitor resolution to 640 x 480 to get it to work right.

So now, when I have company, I can entertain them with music and a slide show, playing in the background while we chat.

Needless to say, I use the 20th Anniversary Mac a bit more often now.