I remember when digital audio first became available and downloading a supercut (which we didn’t have a word for then) of Homer Simpson saying “d’oh”. We probably had to wait at least half an hour, and then we didn’t have a program on the computer that could play audio files (or at least not one we could find) so we had to search around and wait even longer to download some shareware program (Goldwave)
Having like 3+ audio players until Winamp came along and rocked that world.
Hm! What was there? Winplay3, mpg123 and…? Was there another before Winamp? Or are you talking about other formats than mp3?
Assuming Windows, I think Sound Recorder should have worked. I remember wasting many hours just playing with it by reversing, speeding up, or slowing down my voice that I recorded on the old, beige Bob Barker-like standing microphone.
You kids and your fancy MP3s. In my day we used Real Audio, uphill both ways.
I still use Goldwave to this day, so about 20 years. Been using the free version the entire time. I just edit some file every so often to reset my clicks. I need to just buy it, but for some reason I remember intentionally not buying it, maybe was subscription or something.
My first sound file was a supercut of Keiko O’Brien giving birth on Star Trek: The Next Generation, edited to make it sound like an orgasm 😆
I miss Audiogalaxy. I got so many BBC radio dramas from there and I love radio drama. I’ve gotten a lot of them I’ve lost over the years back, and a lot of new ones, thanks to the Internet Archive, but it’s a fraction of what I used to have.
But backing up data back then was way too expensive except on CD-Rs and I have no idea where those CD-Rs went. They’re long gone now.