When looking through discs bundled with magazines, you are always going to come across a bunch of stuff that is either the most trending thing of the time, or something practically unknown to human society. This is one of the latter, even for the time, and due to passage of time, its basically (nearly) lost media.
On running the installer, you are shown this InstallShield-based wizard, with a tasteful gradient and a minimalist graphic which I find rather attractive.
As is customary, you are shown the typical license agreement and readme, nothing too fancy here.
Then you are asked to select the installation location and start menu folder, and then the setup will inform that it is about to copy the files
And as you may guess, it finishes installing and tells you that it’s done.
Now, after all that, you should see an icon for it on your desktop.
As one would hope, it is a standard audio player. It plays audio. It plays playlists. Supports standard formats like .mp3, .pls, .wav, and so on. Nothing much to say in that regard then. As a matter of fact, it is pretty bare due to its nature of being a program that was in it’s beta stage, lacking eyecandy such as skins, visualisers and such.
You may be asking something along the lines of, “So that’s it? What is so groundbreaking about this?” I understand your confusion, this is it’s gimmick:
You can suggest a song to a friend through e-mail with just a click of a button. Supposedly. The settings for this shows a field for your SMTP server, and your address, and even though I tried to use Google’s SMTP server and even a local smtp4dev server, it just wouldn’t send anything. So, I guess they never got around to implementing it.
Readme:
broid - Release 1.0 Beta 3
Copyright © 2001 Ashutosh Nilkanth (ashben.net)
w. www.broid.com e. info@broid.com
broid is the next generation audio software, a project based on collaborated hybrid technologies. Its a web-centric audio experience for the music lover in you! broid has been designed and developed with the idea of providing a totally new perspective to visual, acoustic and media definition. With development efforts and recognition from around the world, broid is evolving into a mature and robust digital audio tool.
IMPORTANT: Please uninstall the previous version of broid (if installed) before proceeding with the upgrade setup.
To get more information on the broid's feature set,
developer efforts, latest updates, future plans etc,
checkout broid's official web site at http://www.broid.com
Requirements:
Microsoft Windows 95/98/2000/ME,
Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Library,
.web requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 4+,
64MB RAM (128MB Recommended),
2MB Disk Space.
Enjoy!
Please report any bugs to bugs@broid.com
Copyright © 2001 Ashutosh Nilkanth (ashben.net)
w. www.ashben.net e. info@ashben.netLicense:
broid - Release 1.0 Beta 3
Copyright © 2001 Ashutosh Nilkanth (ashben.net)
w. www.broid.com e. info@broid.com
All rights for this software are reserved by the author(s).
This release of broid is a FREEWARE. You may use it FREE
of any costs for as long as you want. Your use of the software
means that you accept the following terms & condition.
You are NOT allowed to modify or reverse engineer the contents
of the program files. This software cannot be resold or used
in any profit-generating activities, including, but not limited
to, distributing broid as part of commercial products, or in support
of commercial services, without the author’s expressed written
permission.
There is no warranty or claim of fitness or reliability.
The program is distributed "AS IS", and the author shall NOT
be held liable for any loss of data, down time, loss of
revenue or any other direct or indirect damage or claims
caused by this software.
Enjoy!
Copyright © 2001 Ashutosh Nilkanth (ashben.net)
w. www.ashben.net e. info@ashben.netHistory:
broid 1.0 Beta 3 - 04-08-2001:
* "Suggest Song to Friend" feature with SMTP Config.
* MP3 Info. module with ID3 v2 support, embedded Lyrics & Picture
* Improved save playlist routine
* Improved open folder routine
* Soft-touch buttons
* UPX Compression for smaller file sizes
* Keypress "p" to toggle pause/play
* Minor improvements to the .web interface
* Discontinued the encoder/decoder engine module
* A few playlist bugs fixed
broid 1.0 Beta 2 - 03-04-2001:
* Playlist module redesigned due to directory reading problems
* Support for sequential or random play
* Module integration problems solved
* Added a F.A.Q section
* broid's .web interface enhanced
* Minor interface modifications
broid 1.0 Beta 1 - 02-25-2001:
* Release 1.0 Beta out for the private beta team
F.A.Q.:
Q. What is F.A.Q?
A. F.A.Q stands for Frequently Asked Questions.
Q. What is broid?
A. broid is a free web-centric audio player. A software application designed & developed by a group of software and web developers from around the globe. The R&D being headed by Ashutosh Nilkanth (ashben.net).
Q. What does "broid" mean?
A. According to the english dictionary, broid means "To braid" while braid means to embroid. Lets put it this way, broid (the software) would "embroid" music with the power of internet.
Q. What do I need to install broid on my system?
A. You need Microsoft Windows 95/98/2000/ME, Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Library, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4+ for .web, 64MB RAM (128MB Recommended) and 2MB Disk Space. You may download broid or its updates from http://www.broid.com and then run the setup to install the application.
Q. How is broid different or better than other audio players?
A. broid was designed to be not just a audio software on your desktop playing tons of music formats but as a web-centric application which would make the entire experience of digital music on the internet fun & easy. As we progress on broid's core development it sure would be a great tool to benefit from.
Q. I can't understand what each button does on the main panel?
A. Each button on the panel has an explanatory tooltip. Just place your mouse pointer on the button and a small tooltip would popup to explain its relevance or function.
Q. Whenever I try to run broid, I get a weird error message?
A. Probably you don't have Microsoft Visual Basic 6 Runtime Library installed on your system. This library is freely downloadable from Microsoft site (http://www.microsoft.com).
Q. Whenever I try to run broid .web, I get a weird error message?
A. Probably you don't have Internet Explorer 4+ installed on your system. .web requires IE4+ to connect to the destination frontend.
Q. How can I help project broid?
A. broid is a collaborative development effort. Many web developers and software engineers from around the world send-in code modules & samples, fixes, patches, bug reports, tweaks etc to enhance and rectify broid's software. If you are interested in broid's development & promotion please contact us at team@broid.com with your skill set and suggestions on broid. You may also checkout the ashben.net Task Base (http://www.ashben.net/taskbase.asp) for more details. You may also join the broid community by participating in the forum discussions (http://forums.ashben.net). Most of all, spread the word!
Q. How man people are working on project broid?
A. Around 15 as of March 2001. 3 on the core development while others have made significant contributions on a modular basis.
Q. When did work commence on the project?
A. Early 1999 but the project earned devoted time only in 2001.
Q. Who owns project broid?
A. No-one "owns" broid, its for everyone to enjoy and review. The software application and the audio engine are copyrighted by their respective developers though.
Q. What tools & technologies have been used to design & develop broid?
A. Mediachance MMB, Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, WinAPI, C++, Borland Delphi 5, Adobe Photoshop 5.5, HTML, JavaScript, ASP.
Q. I would like to learn & improve on broid's source code?
A. broid's source code is not public as of now. But believing in our prime objective to promote "publicly maintainable applications" we'll be releasing broid as an open-source application (under GPL) once we reach build 1.0 final release (i.e. non-beta).
Q. What is a Beta version (as in broid Release x.x Beta x)?
A. A Beta version is a "test" release published & distributed for demonstration and QA.
Q. How should I contact you guys?
A. E-Mail us at info@broid.com or support@broid.com
Please report any bugs to bugs@broid.com
Q. I wish to include broid on a CD package and/or on my web site ...
A. Sure, but please contact us through e-mail for a quick notification.
Q. What is the story behind "digi"?
A. "digi" is the dynamic image effect on the broid "LCD" panel. It turns and twists but not with the music. The image behind "digi" is a picture of the surface of Mars taken by NASA on Valentines Day 2000. The peculiar thing about the picture was that it had a "heart" shaped area on the surface. Checkout the original image at http://www.broid.com/digi.jpg
Q. My question was not answered in this F.A.Q?
A. Feel free to get in touch! E-Mail: info@broid.com
If you think that this post was a whole lot of nothing, then it greatly displeases me to admit that you are in fact, entirely correct. I just think if this program was developed a bit more aggressively, we might be talking about just like we do for AIMP, Winamp, foobar 2000, and VLC Media Player. Hell, it could’ve been on the same level as Spotify or iTunes, if they refined the music-suggestion part. In the modern day, members of certain online communities have a pastime where they flex their niche music taste, so it’s easy to see how they would go wild for this. That’s about it for the player.
The creator, Ashutosh Benjamin Nilkanth, or “Ashben”, has since moved on, founding Sprune Technologies, and running a blog at nilkanth.com. His Twitter handle is @voidmonk.
If you would like to install and use the broid yourself, you can find it here on this archived page.