Happy 30th Birthday, Walkman.
Today’s the 30th birthday of the Sony Walkman, the portable music player that changed the way we listened to music and sold over 340 million units.
The original Walkman, while portable, was downright gargantuan by today’s standards, about the size of a paperback novel and weighing in at nearly one pound (14 oz.). It had only three or four hours of battery life and could only handle one 90-minute cassette tape.
So how would a 13-year-old today, whose frame of reference for portable music players is an iPod, iPhone, Zuni or other mp3 player, react to an original Walkman? I ran across this TechCrunch article that followed just such a lad. He agreed to wear a Walkman for a day, and give his impressions. Quite interesting. You can find the article here.
TechCrunch: Kid Swaps iPod for Sony Walkman, Gets Confused
Some choice excerpts:
“It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.”
“I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down ‘rewind’ and releasing it randomly.”
“I’m relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can’t imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.”
Yeah, but it did a heck of a job playing those old England Dan & John Ford Coley tunes!
Posted by Mickey
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