Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The First Sony Walkman Was Released 40 Years Ago

stereogum.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 180 posts

Re: The First Sony Walkman Was Released 40 Years Ago

#2

Post by Daub »

The complete genius of the Walkman was that it featured two headphone jacks. Such a simple design decision, with such large ramifications. In total, the Walkman is a classic example of a disruptive industry: creating new industries and killing (or at least mortally wounding) old ones. I remember how terminally moribund the industry-controlled pop charts had become before mix tapes became a thing.

Re: The First Sony Walkman Was Released 40 Years Ago

#4

Post by galonk »

My first walkman was a WM-22, not that much smaller than the first model. My last was a WM-150, which was just a few mm larger than the actual tape in each direction. It felt amazingly elegant.

(Took me a while to find out the model numbers by looking at image searches... Sony always had the worst product "names".)

Re: The First Sony Walkman Was Released 40 Years Ago

#6

Post by dugditches »

Remember the cool kid having a Dual Deck stereo to make mixtapes. Having a rats nest of tape when one failed.

Then that evolving into whoever had good internet and a CD Burner. Eventually almost 'renting' music by returning a CD-RW with a new request list. Just how much Discmans would skip with Burnt CD's versus Legitimate ones.

To spending $500 on a 128mb MP3 player. Compressing Mp3's into tiny WMA's.

Re: The First Sony Walkman Was Released 40 Years Ago

#7

Post by keyle »

Walking with music has completely changed my life. Can't imagine the amount of ideas I've had and steps I've taken listening to music. With music I can cross the entire city on foot and more.

footnote: do you remember when your batteries were running low and the cassette would start slowing down the music? ;)

Re: The First Sony Walkman Was Released 40 Years Ago

#8

Post by samplatt »

dugditches wrote: post #6

Remember the cool kid having a Dual Deck stereo to make mixtapes. Having a rats nest of tape when one failed. Then that evolving into whoever had good internet and a CD Burner. Eventually almost 'renting' music by returning a CD-RW with a new request list. Just how much Discmans would skip with Burnt CD's versus Legitimate ones. To spending $500 on a 128mb MP3 player. Compressing Mp3's into tiny WMA's.

For an entity that's waged a multi-decade billion-dollar bloody and bitter war against music piracy, Sony certainly have been instrumental in its proliferation.

Re: The First Sony Walkman Was Released 40 Years Ago

#9

Post by W-Stool »

Don't forget the MiniDisc format that Sony also released years later under the "Walkman" brand - for a while there it was an audio storage format and playback hardware that briefly seemed ahead of its time. Sony, if nothing else, were technical innovators during their best days. You knew the gear wasn't imagined and designed by a bunch of bean counters.
Post reply on HN