u/koothooloo

Ok, lots of people couldn't see their devices and that should be fixed now on both ARM and Intel.

There's still a list of tasks to refactor this code to improve it, but several people have been testing 0.6.7 and 0.6.8 and reporting good results.

The downside is that we categorically cannot support anything older than MacOS 12. We tried, but the libraries are just too old.

Thanks for being patient and to all the people who helped test and provided feedback.

• Apple Silicon: https://downloads.tfto.org/minidisc-studio/latest/mac/apple-silicon
• Intel: https://downloads.tfto.org/minidisc-studio/latest/mac/intel

After a considerable amount of wiring, negotiation, persuasion, and low-level communion with machines that remember 2002 rather vividly, the biggest public Mac release is now available.

MD Studio is a small, strange, practical app for building MiniDisc programmes: arranging tracks, preparing transfers, working with formats, and generally restoring a little ceremony to the act of making a disc.

Downloads are here:

Apple Silicon Mac:

https://downloads.tfto.org/minidisc-studio/latest/mac/apple-silicon

Intel Mac:

https://downloads.tfto.org/minidisc-studio/latest/mac/intel

This is early software. It has been tested, argued with, and encouraged, but there will still be rough edges. Reports from the field are useful: device model, macOS version, what happened, and whether any lamps were behaving suspiciously.

Ko-fi support is hugely appreciated. It helps cover hosting, development time, test equipment, and the ongoing work of keeping the little archive machinery alive.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged this peculiar operation so far. The transfer room is open.

New Beta Builds for Apple Silicon and Intel Mac:

• https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/vn1jyvwgatlkmvi5h4bmq/AIdWs7ZQsXAAmjpUvFCzzoI?rlkey=jswvo2zbl7fcze4266ckmtc7k&st=zawuuop1&dl=0

I need people to test specific things:

1. The LP2/4 encoding across varying amounts of time and multiple sessions. The encoder is online, and gated exclusively for users of the app - the amount of hacking coming in was surprising, so public access is gone.
2. Multiple profiles - see Settings
3. That the prefix allocation works - this should appear on startup for most people. You get to keep this prefix, so choose carefully from the options, it's unique to your profile and installation.

Linux and Windows have significant quirks to work through, hence releasing this on Mac first, which is mostly feature-complete for now, so I can iron out visual and UX issues before Linux and Windows versions appear.

--

Stuff to see:

• Preview - automatically catalogue your NetMD devices, give them nicknames, add a photo, keep notes on them, see how many times you connected it, how many songs you wrote to it, the total upload time, and when it was first and last seen. Able to differentiate between multiple identical models. ATRAC support now completely stable for SP, LP2 and LP4. Remote service protected from DDOS, only accessible to this app.
• Create up to three profiles, each with a separate mixtape katalog, crate and device collection
• Each profile gets a chance to pick a prefix for all their mixtape katalog numbers that is unique to their installation of the app. 7 rolls of the dice to find a prefix you like.
• Feature: ever had a disc of untitled tunes? Simply find or make the correct-ish playlist and click "Copy Titles to Disc" and it'll do just that and handle any issues where the mix might have more or fewer tracks than the disc.
• Feature: version history for mixtapes, because some of us are just like this
• Feature: Tessellate, mentioned before, where the algorithm will figure out the most efficient way to pack whatever disc you have with your mixtape. Lock important tracks to SP and it immediately re-calculates
• Feature: The Katalog of your mixtapes. With unique katalog numbers

Found this the other evening on Buyee for £90 and it plays fine, but the wireless is hissy, so I need to get either into the receiver or the device and find out what’s up. It’s not as nice as my D-321 but it’s a darn sight cooler.