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by emptybits·7y ago·view on hn ↗
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 reference CD players were generally well respected. Meh for speakers.

But back to Walkmans ... it was really eye-opening how multiple times per year they would release new variations in size and materials and features or just colours, and people would line up or pre-pay to get their hands on them. People who already had Walkmans, often. The brand loyalty was mostly deserved IMO, because Sony was really doing some original R&D.

Personal faves ... compact models in the drop & waterproof Sports line, especially when issued in non-yellow. The solar model was weird, and not super effective, but damn Sony was trying.[1] The metal, and great-sounding Boodo Khan with supplied headphones was also pretty slick.[2] But from a materials and engineering POV there were some gorgeous delicate little metal-body units and at least one was actually the same size as a plastic cassette case itself.[3] (It would expand slightly when you inserted your media.)

Long after I left Sony I tried to keep the brand faith with MiniDiscs for years. But the MD's time has also come and gone...

[1] http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-f107

[2] http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/dd-100

[3] http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-10

5 comments
I had the cassette size box one I inherited from my younger brother when he bought a new one. Replaced my akai. As a college student I had about 4 rechargable aa batteries. I loved that the Walkman works with one aa battery, as I never knew my batteries state of charge.

Amazingly thin. As you pointed out you had to pull the device open so the cassette could fit inside. The battery seemed to take a lot of the internal space.

The main disadvantage was really slow fast forward/ rewind but you hardly did that with mix raves anyway.

This isn’t the same model but the photos give a good idea of the inside mechanism. These were complex mechanical systems.

http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/just-picked-up-this-beau...

Some bigger model internals: http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/sony-walkman-wm-f2097-mo...

Thanks for sharing this stuff.

It’s hard to resist thinking of iPhones when you talk about people lining up to buy the latest model, even when they already have a Walkman. It makes me daydream about Apple looking like Sony (a bit bloated, a bit of a faded giant) in 30 years.

I'd say that Apple are already pretty much at that point, tbh.
Late tape players were amazing. I think the last one I got was from aiwa, but it sported everything: slim, electronic buttons, li-ion battery. At some point, the technology around them was so well understood that the companies building them really did go over the top to provide the most luxurious experience.
I had one of their 34" XBR HD sets. 211 pounds (132 kg), nearly all of which was at the front, because of the thick glass that the Trinitron tube had. It was a total PITA to get up the stairs when I bought it.

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.

Oh man, the WM-10!!

In junior high that walkman was THE status symbol. Anybody who had one was was considered super cool. A buddy of mine started stealing them from Best Buy and started a small black market in our school.