The Rio MP3 Player dropped in 1998 and basically kicked off the digital music player era before the iPod was even a thing. The first model, the Rio PMP300, held just 32MB of storage—yeah, that’s like 8 songs—but back then, it felt futuristic. No moving parts, super portable, ran on a single AA battery, and let people finally ditch their CD players for something pocket-sized. It got heat from the music industry right out of the gate (RIAA even tried to sue), but that only gave it more attention. Rio kept it rolling with updates like the 500 and 600 series, adding more storage, better screens, and sleeker designs, but by the time the iPod hit in 2001, Rio started falling behind. Still, if you were there in the early days of digital music, Rio was your first taste of freedom from physical media.