wanna buy an ipod 1st gen

[Nightmare-Rex]

hi my video broke  after a month so I want to buy a first gen ipod becuse they probaly built it     stonger (like psp phat gameboy original eta). I want one is there a way to connect it to a PC? can I put a bigger hardrive in it? can I give it a color screen? I understand it will probaly need a new battery.

[karashata]

Assuming you could find a 1st Gen iPod anywhere, about the only thing I can assume you could do with little trouble would be replace the battery and the hard drive. You won't be able to replace the screen with a colour display. All iPods can be connected to a PC, though the oldest models require a FireWire port. If your PC doesn't have a FireWire port, you're probably better off getting a somewhat newer iPod that uses USB.

I don't think your logic really works here, the newer iPods are probably in most (if not all) cases better built than the older ones (if I'm not mistaken, the older iPods' cases were completely plastic, while the newer ones at least had a metal back cover).

[yapper]

The 1st Gen and 2nd gen have metal backs, but I wouldn't recommend them other than for novelty value 

[illux]

I was looking for an older model ipod myself,
Apples store used to sell the old models refurbished, but not anymore, mostly touches and nanos, still they re a bit cheaper than brand new ones.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod

Ebay is the only other way, or ask around your friends/family.

[Chronon]

Also, if you consult the TargetStatus page you can see that some 1g iPods aren't detected properly, resulting in non-working scroll wheel.

If you have a 1g iPod and run into this problem, there is a workaround at FS#8778 that seems to work for some folks.

[soap]

IMHO the 5th generation iPod is better built than the 1st generation.

[LambdaCalculus]

Please note that the 1st generation iPods are strictly Mac-only, according to this chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iPod_models#Models

For PC users, the earliest you can get is a 2nd generation iPod.

[TexasRockbox]

Is that a hardware limitation or a software limitation because of the OS & iTunes not ported to Windows?

From the wikipedia article: "The software bundled with the first generation iPod was Macintosh-only, so Windows users had to use third-party software like ephPod or XPlay to manage their music."

Given that, I would think Rockbox would work.

[LambdaCalculus]

Good point made. It was a software limitation, as iTunes wasn't available on Windows until later. IIRC Apple used to bundle MusicMatch Jukebox for Windows users with the 2nd gen iPod until iTunes was bundled with 3rd gen iPods.

Thanks for clarifying.