Create Digital Music has a nice piece on the Walkman’s 30th Birthday. Pretty surprising actually, I don’t think I became aware of the Walkman until ’85 or so. Peter Kirn makes a good point: “Sony once had iconic design..” Link
Walkman Turns 30
07.23.2009
Dude, I had the SAME walkman once! Same color even! I loved that thing…
Speaking of walkman. I just saw The Walkmen play last night in Covington, KY. It was a great show.
Did you know that Sony put two headphone jacks on the first Walkman because they thought that listening to music through headphones in public was anti-social? You can see it in the top of the middle picture.
Oh wow, just….wow! The Sony Walkman–holy sh!t–LOL!!! My mom had one back in, like, 1982. Hers didn’t have a tack player though; it was just a little dark blue radio unit. I remember the sound being really crisp and clear. I had forgotten all about these.
Man this really makes me feel old, lol.
tim-
really? that’s crazy. I also love the independent Left/Right volume controls as if any consumer user would ever use them.
This is an awesome post because I just picked up a Sony Walkman WM-F17 4 months ago. I forgot what year it was made (1984-86). It has a lot of similar attributes as the one here. There’s really something special about popping a cassette in the player.