Winamp: 29 years of the player that whipped the llama's ass

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0300

Today, 21 April 2026, Winamp turns exactly 29 years old, counting from the release of version 0.20a. It was 1997, dial-up internet still screeched through 56k modems, and an 18-year-old called Justin Frankel — who had dropped out of university not long before — decided to build a decent graphical interface for AMP, an MP3 decoder that ran only in the terminal. The result was one of the most downloaded pieces of software in the history of Windows. And the soundtrack to an entire generation of nerds browsing the web with the volume at maximum.

Justin Frankel on Locodigital

Winamp: 29 years of the player that whipped the llama's ass