101–110 of 180 posts
I think of textful ads as having faded out in the 60s (just look at the long essays that were ads from the 40s or 20s!) but really: would you read an ad in a magazine with that wall of text?
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.
I find it amusing that we went from relatively small Walkman headphones, to tiny little Apple earbuds, to giant Beats headphones as the status symbol.
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? ;)
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it's not the name it's how and why it was on a tape
> how and why it was on a tape I think you're overthinking the whole thing, it's not really "on" a tape. It's the default operation of a tape, they didn't have to come up with the idea, it's a side effect of the medium. You need a motor to move the tape, no motor = no movement = the tape stays in its current position. To automatically rewind the tape you'd need some sort of mechanism under tension in it which would p…
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? ;)
>>With music I can cross the entire city on foot and more. I'll play Devil's Advocate here and say that the Walkman marked the beginning of the end for people having spatial awareness and social skills in public places. You've only got to look at all the people meandering through our city streets today; ears plugged with headphones, faces glued to screens –often walking along with other people but yet completely deta…
“Sheathed within the Walkman wearing the halo of distortion
Aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation”
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IIRC one of the reasons was that the MiniDisc used lossy compression (ATRAC) to store audio onto the disc. So you couldn't actually store music digitally onto it, at least not the amount advertised. This was before MP3 was widespread, I remember people were upset that when they bought MiniDiscs they only got a lossy copy. Later revisions added higher capacity and digital storage but it was too little too late. [1] ht…
The thing is that newer MiniDisc players did offer the ability to load tracks digitally from a PC, but it was gratuitously locked down. Not only was there no way to transfer music in the other direction, there was no way to load tracks compressed with the highest quality level either - the only way to take full advantage of MiniDisc's audio quality was to send uncompressed audio data and let the device compress it, a…
The UX of cassettes was very useful for sharing and swapping music or speech, and for resuming where one left off. Because of the linear tape, the cassette's "playback cursor" was stateful and independent from whether the medium was read-only or not. Playback resumed at (nearly) the same spot as it was last stopped, even if moved to a different player. Successor formats didn't have this property. Interestingly, Sony…
I enjoyed reading your comment, and couldn't help but thinking how I miss this time. The joy of bringing something physical to somebody - a cassette, a vinyl - for their listening pleasure. The feedback loop from the act of giving and receiving. This whole idea of physical sharing made the music more personal and magical. Nowadays I have shared playlist for family and friends, and it lacks magic.
Fond memories of Sony and the Walkman era. I worked part time for Sony from the mid to late 1980s while I was a student, paying tuition bills. It was a dream job for a consumer electronics nerd and budding AV enthusiast, getting to demo and play with everything. Sony was still king of CRTs with XBR line of Trinitrons consistently on top. (Back breakers to move across a room, BTW.) Their ES family of audio amps and re…
The funny thing was that Best Buy had stashed it off in an aisle, and not next to the then-new plasma and LCD TVs in their showcase area. If they had, people would have seen that it had a better picture (sharper, deeper blacks) and cost a fifth as much.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's not the name it's how and why it was on a tape
> how and why it was on a tape I think you're overthinking the whole thing, it's not really "on" a tape. It's the default operation of a tape, they didn't have to come up with the idea, it's a side effect of the medium. You need a motor to move the tape, no motor = no movement = the tape stays in its current position. To automatically rewind the tape you'd need some sort of mechanism under tension in it which would p…
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> a lot of metal and classical music I find this part of your comment interesting because I have noticed such an overlap among a number of people versed in music. I wonder if there is a good way to explain this.
It is indeed interesting. I'd say that it has to do with: - complex structures (not necessarily always 4/4 or 3/4) - variations in dynamic range (loud parts vs. quiet parts) - storytelling / philosophical themes (the human condition, freedom, suffering, literature) - intense "solos" (Mendelssohn insanely fast yet moving segments on the piano vs. Petrucci going crazy on the guitar) - mastery of musical instruments (pa…
My daughter is going to a rock strings camp next week where she will be playing Metallica, Zepplin, etc on cello.