u/atrocity2001

I know for a fact that circa 2001 I had a portable HiMD device that could connect to a Windows computer, though I can't remember which model and I can't actually find it right now. Can't imagine that I would have dumped it if it still worked, but I can't remember it dying. What I do remember is that while I was able to "feed" it via the computer (WAV files on the computer became HiMD files on the device), I was not able to go the other way around. That is, I could not copy files from the MD to the computer and convert them to WAV.

My question is: Given the above limitation with the official Sony software, would Web MiniDisc be able to copy the tracks from my device (if I can find it!) or should I just try to buy another NetMD player? I realize that this is probably an unfair question since I can't even provide the model number!

This is something I'd like to do because I spent a good chunk of the 1990s recording one-off musical performances from TV shows (Letterman and SNL in particular) to MD, resulting in hundreds of recordings that are probably very difficult to find anywhere else. I also have a few MTV Unplugged shows that were never officially released. At some point 15 or so years ago, I used the analog outputs on a non-portable deck to capture the music via a standalone digital recorder and now have FLAC files, but I wasn't yet retired and didn't have the time to do a really good job of it (adding nice fades at the end of songs, etc.) and would like to re-do the project from scratch.

Prices don't seem especially horrible out there, so I'm willing to buy a new device (and at this point assume that I'll likely have to) but want to be sure that it's really a two-way street, that is, I'm not interested in writing anything new to MD but would like to get bit-perfect transfers from MD that I can then convert to WAV/FLAC for archiving on hard drive. There's an MZ-N505 on eBay right now for a good price that I assume would work.

Thank you!

In my area, the original precursor to Fidium goes all the way back to late 2001, so I've been a customer for almost 25 years now. For most of that that time, I've had a static IP and run my own mail server, which has also meant having a PTR DNS record, something that must be done by the owner of the IP address (i.e., the ISP). It's worked great for a long time and even when I upgraded from Consolidated 100Mbps to Fidium 1gig (requiring a new static IP), they handled the PTR record just fine.

Over the weekend, Yahoo stopped accepting any mail from my server due to the sudden lack of a PTR record. I opened a chat and, as expected, got someone who had no idea what I was talking about. When I mentioned "static IP" I got told that something or other had changed and I could no longer use DHCP but would have to input the static IP info in my router. Of course, I had done exactly that long ago.

Fortunately, they wound up realizing they couldn't help and gave me a ticket number, saying I'd be called back about it. The call never came, but within 24 hours I found that the PTR record had been reinstated and I can send mail to Yahoo again.

I don't know what genius decided to delete the record in the first place, but at least they managed to fix it with minimal fuss. I was fully expecting a fight and am delighted that I didn't get one.