I know if you are in this forum, this is not news to you.
My wife bought an Archos JB FM Recorder off of Ebay as an early Christmas present for me. It didn't have a manual or software so I went to the Archos web site and downloaded the manual and latest firmware. When I first started playing with it, I was having a great time just learning its features and options and listening to my MP3 collection. The only problem was that it would randomly would lock-up, requiring the long OFF press to shut it down. In the first two days I played with it, it must have locked-up around 30 times. It would sometimes lock-up while powering up, while powering down, while listening to the FM radio and almost always while recording. Also certain songs would always lock it up at the same point in the song. I loaded the firmware that I had downloaded from Archos (which happened to be the original release), but nothing changed. I was still having a lot of fun with it, but the lock-ups were annoying.Â
I did some searching online and found a lot of user reviews and opinions on this and other Archos models. I read quite a few that complained of random lock-ups and other reliability issues. Many had worked with Archos technical support and had formatted the HD, installed the latest Archos firmware and sent the unit in for repair. It seemed that many customers could not get their problems fixed by Archos. I then came across someone who had fixed their player by loading Rockbox. What! A third party replacement firmware for an MP3 player! A *free* third party replacement firmware for an MP3 player!Â
I loaded Rockbox V2.3 to try it out and was amazed (more like floored!) that it not only eliminated all of my lock-up problems (guess it wasn't a hardware problem!), but offered so many more features and custom settings. I've played with every setting and created custom WPS screens and have been having a Blast just playing with it. It's still a bit hard to believe that something this cool could exist!
Well enough of my ramblings. My point is that Rockbox is an incredible achievement and labor of love.
A big THANK YOU! to everyone involved.
Steve