Chip size of the CPU isn't really a big deal here, the big breakthroughs with the ipod were the concept itself, the cheap flash memory chips, and battery life.
And, well, the ability to easily get your music onto a PC in some well-compressed digital format to synch to it.
The compact disk should be already popular by this point, so that gets us over one hurdle.
Figuring out how to read data coming off the chip won't be too hard, then they'll be able to access its file system and figure out how mp3 compression works.
Battery life... people are used to constantly swapping out batteries in walkman-type devices, having one or two AAA's to power a slightly-larger-than-OTL ipod won't phaze anyone. The rechargable battery isn't all that hard either.
The biggest issue is going to be the flash chip, the technology is just hitting the market in 1984, so should be available...
Honestly, there's no reason at all why they couldn't have gone to market with something like this years before they historically did (2001). The biggest issue would be getting music from CD to device, which requires a PC with a CD drive, enough disk space, and the software required. Which, ok, maybe not so easy or cheap. But it's easily something you could arrange to do in kiosk mode, say, in a record store....
And, well, the ability to easily get your music onto a PC in some well-compressed digital format to synch to it.
The compact disk should be already popular by this point, so that gets us over one hurdle.
Figuring out how to read data coming off the chip won't be too hard, then they'll be able to access its file system and figure out how mp3 compression works.
Battery life... people are used to constantly swapping out batteries in walkman-type devices, having one or two AAA's to power a slightly-larger-than-OTL ipod won't phaze anyone. The rechargable battery isn't all that hard either.
The biggest issue is going to be the flash chip, the technology is just hitting the market in 1984, so should be available...
Honestly, there's no reason at all why they couldn't have gone to market with something like this years before they historically did (2001). The biggest issue would be getting music from CD to device, which requires a PC with a CD drive, enough disk space, and the software required. Which, ok, maybe not so easy or cheap. But it's easily something you could arrange to do in kiosk mode, say, in a record store....