I actually had some wav file which I decided to use to test l3enc. I was using DOS or probably OS/2. No idea how to rip from a cd, I simply knew it was possible somehow. I never found out until years later because l3enc just took so long, and that mp3 looked so BIG in my 340Mb drive (and was so useless since I had my stereo right there...) that it took me 1 second to look at my cd collection and think:" forget it. Maybe in few years". Had no idea a mp3 car player could ever be created, also because a 1Gb hdd was just a dream!
It was around 1994/1995/1996... Who remembers? When was l3enc released? I remember it was something very new at that time. Quite pioneeristic to use...
Then when I purchased my first cdr (2x) a friend of mine gave me a cd full of mp3 to copy. 1998. Winamp was already good enough to play them, even though it would take too much cpu, definitely. I had my BBS on that PC, could not afford to slow everything down to listen to anything. But I made some tapes for my old car
.
Then a new car, and the Empeg. 2001.
Then car stolen, and new car again. 2003. The empeg still is the best you can have in it.