I'm looking at the Creative “Zen” patent that is causing so much buzz these days, and I need to know how the empeg MK1 menus operated before 2000.

I see, from searching prior posts, that hierarchical playlists were added in the empeg Beta7 release, on Sept. 30, 1999. Unfortunately, the only depiction I have on how to navigate playlists seems to come from the Rev. 2 user's manual available on empeg.com, from some time in the 2000 time frame. The manual depicts the selection of “playlists” from a top-level function menu, with a horizontal set of “genre” playlists.

My question, for empeg owners familiar with the MK1 software, as it existed in 1999, is:

1. Did the Mk1 software circa Sept. 1999 permit you to navigate hierarchical playlists the same way as was done in the Mk2?

2. In 1999, did you implement multiple levels of nested playlists, including genre, artist, album, and tracks within an album playlist?

3. Physically, how did you navigate down each level of nested playlist, and what did the empeg display show at each level?

4. At the lowest level, could you directly select a particular track to play, and if so, how?.

5. Can anyone direct me to a user guide/manual for the Mk1 that showed how to navigate among playlists?

I’ve been given a very tight schedule to come up with answers, and would really appreciate your help.

I'm not 100 percent certain of all of those behaviors in that particular beta version. I wonder if there's a copy of that beta floating around. I don't think I kept betas that old.

I'd really like to know more about why you want to know this. Are you seriously talking about overturning Creative's patent? If so, more power to ya, and I'm sure everyone here would love to help.

So, the answers to the questions I do know authoritatively are:

Quote:
Did the Mk1 software circa Sept. 1999 permit you to navigate hierarchical playlists the same way as was done in the Mk2?

Yes. Aside from the "Enqueue" feature (hold down the button to enqueue a track/playlist, press it to play the track/playlist), the way you navigated the hierarchy of playlists was identical to the way it's done in the current software. It hasn't changed.

Quote:
In 1999, did you implement multiple levels of nested playlists, including genre, artist, album, and tracks within an album playlist?

At that time, the playlists were arbitrarily named, by the user. They *could* be genre, artist, album, etc., but they didn't have to be. I know that I named my playlists that way from the very beginning, but those names could have been anything. My hierarchy could have been:

Foo
Bar
Yada
Yada

Or it could have been:

Progressive Rock
Rush
Moving Pictures
Tom Sawyer

Both were possible.

Quote:
Physically, how did you navigate down each level of nested playlist, and what did the empeg display show at each level?

Exactly the same as you do today.

- Menu/OK/downarrow opens the menu.
- Menu/OK/downarrow selects "playlists".
- Left/Right scrolls the playlists.
- Menu/OK/downarrow selects that playlist.
- Repeat the last two steps until you're in whatever playlist you want to play.
- Menu/OK/downarrow (on the triangular PLAY icon) plays that playlist.

Quote:
At the lowest level, could you directly select a particular track to play, and if so, how?.

Yes. If you reached a playlist where the children are just a bunch of songs (say, an album playlist), it simply shows you all the song titles, and you can select and play individual songs. Or, you could press the triangle "play" icon to play all of them.

If you reach a playlist that is a mixture of loose songs and additional sub-playlists, one of the items available to select is a musical note icon that represents the loose songs in that playlist. Pressing Menu/OK/downarrow on that musical note icon gives you the list of loose songs.

Quote:
Can anyone direct me to a user guide/manual for the Mk1 that showed how to navigate among playlists?

That one, I don't know. Perhaps the Empeg/Rio guys will be able to supply you with an old PDF or something. They'll probably want to talk to you in more detail to find out more about exactly what your little project is.

Would it really matter anyway if the empeg had it first if hugo didn't get a patent ?

Yes. It's called "Prior Art".

I thought that was the case for copyright not patents but I'm sure you are right.

Actually, the term is specifically used in patent law.

In the US you have 1 year to file your patent. So subtract one year from Creative's patent date to get the date they can claim they came up with the idea.

However, the patent is totally frivolous and should never have been granted in the first place. it cleary fails the most basic requirements of any patent. The idea was not novel nor was it non-obvious to someone skilled in the art.

You might be able to get their patent overturned if you can show Creative themselves were using similar navigation in any product that predates the patent by more than one year. Other products to look at are Compaq's player and Diamond's original Rio - I'm not certain how those worked though.

Bruno

Hierarchical playlists were, as far as I know, first implemented in the Empeg Car. I don't believe any other MP3 player used a playlist hierarchy until then.

I wonder if there's a copy of that beta floating around

I have betas going back quite a ways (see attached), and I may have some going back even further on my computer at work.

Let me know if anything looks useful.

tanstaafl.

I've got Beta 5 and 7 available. Hierarchical playlists were available from day 1. The original software was developed by Mike Crowe and Hugo Fiennes towards the end of 1998. I have got a PDF copy of the Mk 1 user manual, as well as an original printed copy.