Sonicstage — Mac

This is how I spend my Saturday nights.

But not tonight. Tonight, I have a miracle. Tonight, I have a MiniDisc. Tonight, the future is a tiny, spinning disc in a blue plastic caddie, and I will never let it go.

I sit in the glow of my iMac G4, the one with the floating arm. On my screen is a window. Inside that window is Windows 98. Inside that Windows 98 is SonicStage 1.5. It looks like a CD jewel case from a dentist’s waiting room—all gradients and tiny, threatening icons. sonicstage mac

On a PC, SonicStage is merely bad. It is bloated, slow, and prone to crashing, but it works. On a Mac, in 2003, it does not exist.

The year is 2003. The world is silver and translucent blue. I am seventeen, and I have made a terrible mistake. This is how I spend my Saturday nights

I right-click. I select “Convert Format.” A dialog box appears. It is written in the language of a hostile bureaucracy. “Convert to ATRAC3 (132 kbps) – Standard Mode – Allow Check-Out (1)”

I close it. I unplug the MiniDisc. I plug it back in. I restart the emulator. I restart the Mac. I go downstairs and get a glass of water. I come back. The music is still there. No. It’s not. The disc is empty. The green checkmark was a lie. Uwe has failed me. Tonight, I have a MiniDisc

Sony, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that the Mac is a toy for graphic designers and poets. They have not written a driver, let alone an application. To put music on my MiniDisc, I must run a Windows emulator.