Some cool trivia from a quick research foray today:
The Sony Walkman cost $200 when first introduced in 1979. Prices quickly dropped, but that’s almost $600 in 2009 dollars.
Makes you rethink the iPad, no?
The Sony Walkman
16 thoughts on “The Sony Walkman”
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More context than attack or apologia. I don’t need an iPad. What I need is an iReader — the iPad’s graphics/ease/appearance coupled with the Kindle’s larger bookstore.
I still have a Sony Walkman, which I used pretty regularly until two years ago. Podcast subscriptions made it unnecessary, but I am fond of my taxicab yellow friend.
Does anyone remember the Bomar Brain, from the 1970, the first handheld calculator that costs around $100 and performed 4 functions? It’s in my junk drawer right now!
My dad was head of the commercial division and helped develop the Bowmar Brain
The Bowmar Brain; from a Fort Wayne, Indiana company, baby!!; I believe Texas Instruments (et al) did them in; but I can tell you that the company still exists – or at least the facility (near the airport) is still there, and the name Bowmar is still on the sign. (I believe they are a defense contractor anymore – which given the $100 for 4-function goodness is somehow fitting!)
Do you remember those red LED readouts? And they were so impressively small(!) And, there was the 7734 joke.
They LOOKED like the future. I think if you could have had an iPad back then, they’d suspect you were an alien from another planet.
I don’t even like to think about what I paid for my Nikon SLR with three lenses back in the day. Makes a kicky retro paperweight, though.
I remember paying $49.95 for a Walkman knockoff in the summer of 1984, which represented a previously-unimaginable level of personal extravagance. In fact, I still feel guilty about that purchase.
And I just sold a three-year-old iPod Shuffle to the local junk shop for $10.
Sigh.
“Makes you rethink the iPad, no?”
I confess that I first thought that this was an apologia for the iPad from an Appleophile; but then it occurred to me that it was the exact opposite, and rather than an avid apologia, it was more of an attack.
Anyway, the most avid Apple people I personally know absolutely LOVE their iPads, and will drop everything to showoff all the ultra-cool things it can do; and the unmistakeable (and unintended) impression I’m left with is – The Razor’s Edge Ain’t For Me. (If I had to come up with a book title that would make me reach over and take a peak inside, it might be something like that)
I don’t think there’s really a comparison. The popularity of the Sony Walkman (and its imitators) lasted well into the 90s. The iPad will be obsolete in a couple years, replaced by something that’ll be obsolete a couple years after that. And the public will dutifully run out and buy the Next Big Thing�, regardless of the cost.
As much as I think the iPad is kind of cool, and I could probably get some use out of it, a lot of that “use” is stuff I would be MAKING uses for, rather than having it address a need that I haven’t yet met, if that makes any sense. Until that happens I’ll probably hold off.
I had a cassette Sony Walkman back in the 80s which went everywhere with me. I now have a digital Sony Walkman which goes everywhere with me and cost me $189 US, for the 8gb version, last year.
My Walkman contains my selection of lossless audiofiles (and some video) which play in magnificent sound, through either speakers or headphones without the need for an extra pre-amp, with volume to spare and no distortion. Even with a headphone amp, lossless files (which most people don’t use,) and excellent speakers or phones, listening to an iPod sounds like listening through tinny mud. Twenty years of experience with a commitment to audio, rather than fashion, makes a difference.
Re: iPad and Laura’s comment – I want exactly that eReader, too. I wouldn’t sink (back) into the apple ecosystem for it but I’m waiting for an affordable reader which doesn’t give me motion sickness the way e-ink reverse contrast page turn does. For now, I use the PC versions of Kindle, Nook etc on my tablet PC – a real one, upon which I handwrite (with a stylus, being a tool-user) into Word and mark-up PDFs as I have done since 2003, when tablets first came out. MS bit itself in the foot in 2005 and those of us who were early adopters warned people off them for a while but Windows 7 is, at last, an excellent tablet OS.
iPad, schmiPad.
For me, the iPad would not work as an eReader. The grayscale of the Kindle is crucial for me; my eyes can’t handle engrossed novel reading on a backlit screen. But for those who can, there is the free Kindle for iPad app. Amazon shopping and iPad reading.
Wow, Jackie, did you touch off an unexpected memory: The guys on the first floor of my dorm called themselves Bomare (Bo-MAR-a) after that calculator and took as their symbol a drawing of an Easter Island head. They also sang “Bomare” to the tune of “Volare.”
They were much cooler than they sound. I quite idolized them.
I had a Bomar Brain too.
I remember my grandfather and the TI 4-function LED calculator that he proudly bought for $99. A year or two later, they were loss leaders everywhere for $10 or less. A few years later, I got the slightly infamous calculator ($65 IIRC) that had most of the scientific functions known to man, but returned the wrong value for one of the inverse trig functions ( arccos(1)?) I can’t find its name on google… HELP!
One fun thing about the LED calculators was if you waved them, you could see that the individual digits were flashed separately. More recently, you can buy programmable gizmos that flash out the vertical segments of messages, such that you can’t see anything but a line of lights until you twirl it about, at which point you can read the message in it.
Oddly enough, I just bought real Sony walkman two days go for my son ($40 still) — he gets “music therapy”, and of course the music isn’t available on anything other than CDs (and I can’t borrow or buy them to rip them). In spite of the severe superiority of MP3 players in terms of expense, convenience, battery usage, and general indestructibility. <sigh>
I happen to be a Mac user, but I haven’t seen a need carry around the bulky iPad. I find the Kindle a much friendlier device for reading in my spare time whether flying or riding in a car or on a train. It is easy to carry, charge and manage.
While I can’t check my e-mail or download a PDF file on my Kindle (it is the original Kindle), I am not disappointed. Actually, I spend too much time now checking e-mail and doing other kinds of “work” on my computer. No need to increase my time on-line.
As my youngest son always tells me when he purchases a new piece of technology , , , “I have a new toy!” The iPad is one toy that I’ll never add to my collection. It would end up in its case, sitting in my cupboard just like my iPod.