Web MiniDisc

Brings NetMD Devices to the Web

Live @ https://stefano.brilli.me/webminidisc/.
How it works @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frs8qhw0g9Y.
Blogpost @ https://stefano.brilli.me/blog/web-minidisc/

Requires Chrome or any other browser that supports both WASM and WebUSB

macOS

it just works ® ... no need to download or install any software.

Linux

To grant permission to the browser to access the USB device you'll need to add UDEV rules that grant access to a group called plugdev. You will also need to ensure your user is added to that plugdev group.

1. Copy https://github.com/glaubitz/linux-minidisc/blob/master/netmd/etc/netmd.rules into /etc/udev/rules.d/70-netmd.rules
2. Add yourself to the plugdev group (create the group if it doesn't exist)

$ groupadd plugdev
$ usermod -a -G plugdev YourUserName

3. Reboot
4. Plug-in your netmd device after loggin in.

Also note that you will need to use a browser packaged by your distro vendor; browsers installed via snap or flatpak wont work.

Windows 10

The Windows USB stack requires a driver to be installed to communicate with any USB device. The bad news is that there are no official Windows 10 drivers for NetMD devices. The good news is that we don't need it! We can just use a generic driver like WinUSB to access the device.

You can find installation instruction here, but the easiest way to install is to use Zadig.
Note: you'll need to restart your browser after installation.

Chrome OS

Works without any addtional set up - tested with 91 stable (91.0.4472.102). If your user account or device is managed (by your school or company) you may run into some issues. If you are using a personal google account on a personal chromebook you should be good to go.

Don't know what is a MiniDisc?

• Where to start -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc
• Community -> https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/

How to build

This project was bootstrapped with Create React App, so you can run:

• npm start to start the development server
• npm build to build for production

WASM modules are provided in the public/ directory. However, if you wish to build those binaries yourself, instructions are provided in the extra/ directory.

How to Contribute

Every contribute is welcome but, please, reach out to me before working on any PR. I've built this app mainly for personal use and I wish to keep it as light as possible in terms of features.

Bugs and Issues

There might be plenty of them, for sure :) . The thing is that I've not the time to fix all of them and to make sure this app works on every browser or device.

The best way to get a bug fixed, a feature implemented, or a device supported, is to fork the project and do it for yourself. I'll try to provide support as best as I can.

Backstory

A few weeks ago I've found my old MZ-N710 in the basement of my parents' house.

Determined to make it work on my modern Mac, after some googling, I found out about the linux-minidisc project. They've done an amazing job in reversing the NetMD protocol.

After a quick inspection to the source code I realized the project could be easily ported to javascript (either node and the browser) using the WebUSB api, so I created netmd-js. Then, on top of that I've built Web MiniDisc to manage the music on my device without the need of downloading and installing any dedicated software.

That's it. It was a LOT of fun :).

Some OSS I've used

• FFmpeg and ffmpegjs, to read audio files (wav, mp3, ogg, mp4, etc...).
• Atracdenc, to support atrac3 encoding (lp2, lp4 audio formats).
• Emscripten, to run both FFmpeg and Atracdenc in the browser.
• netmd-js, to send commands to NetMD devices using Javascript.
• material-ui, to build the user interface.
• linux-minidisc, to build the netmd-js library.