Back in the day (around 1996) before MP3 became a mainstream thing, Winplay3 was the only Windows-based realtime MP3 player. It was made by Fraunhofer, the same German group that created the MP3 standard. This player was a form of crippleware that would only play the first 30 seconds of each MP3. This limitation, among others (such as lack of a playlist editor) lead aspiring software authors to develop better MP3 players, such as Winamp.