R.I.P. Sony Walkman

[DaBees-Knees]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11618899

Lovers of music overlaid with hissing have reacted with sadness to news that Sony has ceased production of its celebrated portable cassette-playing audio device. It is survived by its neater, slicker, more junior MP3 descendant.

But the Walkman will be fondly remembered as the contraption which transformed listening to music from an activity conducted principally in one's own living room, perhaps with glass of brandy in hand, to a means of irritating other people on public transport.

Friends of Sony Walkman may have predicted its demise when digital technology offered a more compact alternative, one which did not depend on carrying on one's person a supply of cassettes and a biro in order to conduct remedial tape-spooling.

But following its birth in 1979, an astonishing 220 million units were sold - testament to the device's status as a 1980s icon no less memorable than shoulder pads, Filofaxes and David Bowie starting to produce rubbish albums.

Alas, technological progress and the dawn of the CD meant the decade was barely complete before the general public started to recognise that audio cassettes were not, in fact, the medium of the future but a cumbersome, chewing-up-prone source of much annoyance.

CD and MP3 versions of the Walkman will remain in production, but it is via the ubiquity of the music played on Apple iPods leaking beyond their users' headphones into the earshot of other public transport users that its spirit truly lives on.

"An astonishing 220 million units were sold"

Ah, memories, memories. I remember buying my cassete Walkman and thinking it was the greatest thing I had ever seen.  

[White Stripes]

i didnt even know they were still making them o.O

my sony brand walkman broke years ago (right channel audio replaced with a nasty buzz regardless if i used the radio or tape) .... but a different brand 'walkman' with an eq replaced it (still have that one somewhere)....

notice the use of the name walkman? its a common thing to call a little tape player regardless if sony made it or not... sorta like calling a tissue a kleenex or for brits a vaccuum cleaner a hoover.... lol...

plan for some confused grandkids....

Lovers of music overlaid with hissing have reacted with sadness

odd it should say that cos look as i might i never did find a walkman with dolby noise reduction..... hmmm....