Back in the summer of 2019, while unpacking old boxes for our new house, I pulled a strange cable out of the dark and found my old MiniDisc player. I hadn't touched it in more than 20 years, and it still plays.
Opening a time capsule
We had just moved into a new place, and for years my university boxes, printed photos and memories had been sitting at my parents' house because they took up too much space. Now that I finally had room, I was slowly bringing everything back. It felt like opening a time capsule: memories that had been lying in the back of my brain suddenly got direct sunlight.
I was sorting through boxes when I found a cable I recognised but couldn't place. I pulled it, and out popped my old MiniDisc player. I stared at it for a long time, sure it would never work again. The last time I used it I was 18, and music played a huge role in my daily life back then.
Will it still play?
I went looking for the power supply and, boom, I found the original one, not some generic replacement. The battery no longer charges, but the player switches on. In another box I found my MiniDisc holder with all my precious discs, some labelled, some not.
The disc already sitting in the player was the one I listened to when I travelled alone around northern Europe for a month in 1998, and that was the only one that didn't want to play. I tried another one and it worked. I was so happy that I didn't even notice I was singing along to Emilia's "Big Big World". Then I tried all the others, and they all played perfectly. The sound is still great.
What was a MiniDisc, anyway?
For the Millennials: before smartphones, before media players, before the iPod, there was the MiniDisc. When it came out, the only portable music player was the Discman, bulkier than a Walkman, with fragile CDs that skipped at the smallest scratch. The MiniDisc was small, elegant and light, the discs were about a third of the size of a CD and protected in a plastic shell, and best of all they were recordable, so you could make your own mixes just like with cassettes. Sony ended production of the players in 2013, though I found out you can still buy blank discs online from Japan.
Exactly what I needed
The months before this were exhausting: the move, the refurbishment, the wood floors, storage problems. My mind was completely absorbed and I was too tired to be creative. This unexpected discovery gave me back a bit of positivity and inspiration. My new office was nearly finished, and this little piece of vintage tech will definitely have its throne in it, because it reminds me where I came from and how I became who I am. Songs don't matter that much anymore. The memories are what count.