Birth of an empeg
Meet Jack
In June 1998, following considerable interest in the MP3 Mobile, Hugo decided to produce a commercial version and started a new company - empeg - to develop and market it.
Hugo worked with a talented hardware designer, Patrick Arnold, to design an in-dash MP3 player from scratch.
The first prototype, named Jack, was completed by Christmas 1998 and worked perfectly first time. You can see from the picture that most of the Mk.1 car player features were present in Jack, although two further prototypes were made before the Mk.1 design was finalised. Unfortunately the car player software is no longer compatible with Jack, so he has now taken pride of place in the empeg display cabinet.
Up to the release of the Mark 1 empeg player, in August 1999, practically all of the development was carried out by four engineers - Hugo, Patrick, Mike and Toby - from the comfort of Hugo's spare bedroom and dining room. Since then several more developers and administrative staff have joined the company, which now occupies an office and dispatch suite in Cambridge, UK.
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