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Sony's Cassette Walkman Discontinued After 30 Years


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Last week, Sony announced it would be ceasing production of its cassette Walkman after 30 years. The original Walkman, which debuted in 1979, sold over 200 million units in its history.

Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The original Walkman introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones.

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The device was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent trans-Pacific plane trips. The original Walkman was marketed in 1979 as the Walkman in Japan, the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and the Stowaway in the UK. Advertising, despite all the foreign languages, still attracted thousands of buyers in the US specifically. Morita hated the name "Walkman" and asked that it be changed, but relented after being told by junior executives that a promotion campaign had already begun using the brand name and that it would be too expensive to change.

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Since then, the Walkman has given its name to many Sony personal, portable players.

Obviously, the demand for cassette players is gone, much less the demand for a portable cassette player weighing ten times as much as a typical portable digital music player. It's certainly become an icon in gadget history, even inspiring at least one modern MP3 player's design, not to mention its effects on headphone design. Still, it's always a sad day when a beloved gadget goes the way of the 8-track. Perhaps the Walkman will some day make a comeback similar to the record player.

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What this means to me is an end of an era, and a special time o fmy life. I got my first Personal Cassette Player when I was thirteen. Sadly it wasn't a Walkman, but an early Panasonic copy, which was cheaper. It was my main Christmas present that year, and suddenly I could listen to music I liked, instead of what my Dad liked. The Cassette player took four AA batteries, had only Play, Fast-Forward, and Stop. In order to rewind, you had to turn the cassette over, and forward it.

I spent many a Sunday evening taping the Top 40 off the radio, playing a strange game where you would try to pause the recording before the DJ spoke, but leave as much of the song as you could. And then there was the 'Mix Tapes'. Cassettes filled with recordings of your vinyl singles, and your favourite songs. You would pass them around to your mates, and when I was a kid, if a girl took a mix tape you'd offered, there was a good chance of some kissing down the line.

I couldn't say how many Walkmans, and other branded cassette players I went through over the years, but I still have my last one. I used it to convert a few old cassettes to MP3, via the Pc's line in.

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alba ftw!

in all seriousness these were a life saver as a kid. we used to have to go on massive family walks and having a tape player with me was the only thing that stopped me from running out in front of a car.

although I think the only walkman I owned was a mini disc player :unsure:

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Yeah - I had a Sony Minidisc player and an anti-shock Discman. You can see why I was sceptical of the Playstation.

I never had a walkman tho as they were far too expensive. I had a generic cheapo one tho with the orange sponge headphones. I spent my confused teenage years with it clamped to my head listening to Madonnas Like a Virgin and True Blue convinced she knew what it was like for a closeted North England teenager.

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I've had various actual walkmans over the years (I'm an only child, thus a spoilt shit) but my first "personal music player" was a bush as well. It was red and black and like CP's, you couldn't rewind, only fast forward and it took about a million batteries. After a couple of years I got my first official walkman. It was fucking sweet. Had Dolby noise reduction (because an 8 year old kid knows what the fuck dolby is..) and some wicked headphones that had a band over your head, but actually went inside your ear, like a cross between the two types. It was awesome, I used to listen to all the chart stuff on it, the simpsons album, the ace of base album, queen - greatest hits, excellent stuff.

I actually bought another tape walkman when everyone else was getting CD players (i was about 15 i guess). It was tiny, only just a bit bigger than an actual cassette, had its own rechargeable battery that lasted forever and a day (not like people with a discman and the 5 min batteries). The more impressive thing was it could do all the stuff a cd player could do like skip songs, repeat and the likes. Used that for years before getting a mini disc player, and finally ipods.

I had thought they still made tape walkmans in Japan, sure i read something about a new one on a website the other day.

Anyway, well done walkman, you probably shaped my life or something like that.

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i forgot to bring my walkman and headphones to work today :( (my mp3 player is a walkman - maybe the only one i've ever owned)

wonder why they're getting rid of it? - maybe because everyone instantly thinks of cassette players, which maybe isn't ideal if you're trying to sell mp3 players.

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I had thought they still made tape walkmans in Japan, sure i read something about a new one on a website the other day.

Further research shows that Sony have stopped production of Cassette Walkmans' everywhere except limited batch runs in China. These are for developing countries, and some for the Western market, so old people who can't get their heads around MP3 players.

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I have one very similar to the one in the picture. People just don't listen to cassettes any more why would they make something that isn't going to sell?

However, I do think in a few years musicians will be putting the hiss that you get from magnetic tape recordings into their songs. Nothing ever truly dies, it just gets reused.

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I had loads of walkmans growing up, i still have the last one in the picture above, still works as well. They are something of a legend like the original mini, would be up for my gadget of the century!

I remember the Gadget Show doing something similar where they picked the ipod over the walkman for their gadget wall :unsure:

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I do like my ipod, but i also like my cassette walkman, hhmmmm what would win in a fight??! FIGHT!!!

Sorry a bit carried away there, i think the ipod just made things easier and better the walkman for me was the start of it all. Without the walkman would we have had the ipod? if the walkman had flopped and no-one wanted music on the go, we wouldn't have ipods.

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