New : Sony wm-103 added at Takashi Sogabe. New :Kaoru Sumita added, along with Mitsuru Ida and Minoru Shimada for the Sony wm-10/20
ATSUSHI MURAKAMI Sony wm-40 is one of my all time top favorite walkmans. Unique design, absolutely top quality construction, top performance ,everything you need to become a walkman collector and never look back. Beautifully over-engineered and with a patent to match. Patent title : CASSETTE TAPE RECORDING AND/OR REPRODUCING APPARATUS Inventor : Atsushi Murakami Assignee : Sony Corporation Filed: May 30, 1985 There is a deviation from the patent door drawings to the actual model with the latest having a trapezoid (when more than one pair of parallel sides is accepted for the use of the term) cassette window that somehow looks like opposing pointers as an attempt to underline the autoreverse feature. Also ,there can not be seen any control buttons for the tape transport.(probably there are other patents for the exterior design and other mechanical parts). In certain areas WM-40 was marketed as WM-10RV, like the one above from my collection, presumably referring to the other collapsible Sony walkman the WM-10 with added auto-ReVerse feature.Although the similarities between the two models ending somewhere near to the collapsible feature if at all. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates generally to a cassette tape recording and/0r reproducing apparatus best suited for a compact tape cassette, particularly to such a cassette tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus, wherein not only its body in which a tape cassette is mounted,but also its openable cover which covers the tape cassette mounted in the body, can be varied together in widths, and when the apparatus is in use, the widths of the body and cover are increased to minimal widths necessitated for mounting a cassette, and when the apparatus is out of use, the widths of the body and cover are so decreased to smaller widths than those necessitated for mounting the cassette as to be easier to carry. 2. Description of the Prior Art In a cassette tape recording and/or reproducing apparatus of this sort, if the widths of the body and cover can be increased or decreased independently to each other, often occur such erroneous operations as to mount the tape cassette while the width of the body is decreased, or to decrease the width of the body while the tape cassette is mounted, so that the tape cassette or the apparatus is apt to be considerably damaged.
Sony in its quest to cover every aspect of the walkman concept thought it would be nice to integrate headphones with the main unit in a way that you could neatly fold and unfold them , avoiding the headphones wire mess when the walkman was not in use. In more recent times the idea had a full circle and the walkman player was integrated into the headphones . (Sony NWZ-W273) Here are two early examples and the solutions the designers came up with. In the case of WM EX-911 the folding headphones had also a fairly complicated remote control. KAZUE KATO Patent title:Combined Tape Player and Earphone Inventor : Kazue Kato Assignee: Sony Corporation Filed: Aug. 16, 1988 CLAIM The ornamental design for a combined tape player and earphone, as shown and described ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Toshio Arai - Takashi Kubo - Kazutaka Nakashima - Kiminobu Ichimura - Mitsuru Ida Patent title : RECORDING AND/OR REPRODUCING APPARATUS Inventors: Toshio Arai - Takashi Kubo - Kazutaka Nakashima - Kiminobu Ichimura - Mitsuru Ida Assignee: Sony Corporation. Tokyo. Japan Filed: Oct. 24, 1995 ABSTRACT A recording and/or reproducing apparatus , such as a tape recorder, includes a recording and/or reproducing unit housed within a main body portion , an electro-acoustic transducing section , an actuating input unit, first and second connection cord assemblies and frst and second cord take up units. The recording and/or reproducing unit records and/or reproduces the information on or from a recording medium , such as a magnetic tape. An electro-magnetic transducer is fed with information signals reproduced by the recording and/or reproducing unit An actuating input unit, removably mounted on the main body portion , sets or switches the recording or reproducing state of the recording and/or reproducing unit. The first connection cord assembly interconnects the actuating input unit and the recording and/or reproducing unit for exchanging information signals and the second connection cord assembly interconnects the electro-acoustic transducing unit and the actuating input unit. The first take-up unit is provided in the main body portion for taking up the first connection cord assembly and the second take-up unit is provided in the actuating input unit for taking up the second connection cord assembly.
Gotta love the wm-40. I have two. One in black (Japanese version) and the gold. I need to find the tuner pack! Anyone wanna swap one for a DD case and set of stickers??!
Sony WM-F10/20 is an amazing walkman for several reasons, the most obvious is the collapsible feature and the lilliput size almost that of a cassette case. Sony WM-10/20 introduced on 1 Oct. 1983 and in less than two months was introduced the WM-F10/20 on 21 Nov. 1983 , in other words a WM-10/20 with a radio receiver incorporated underneath its door ,so the radio version of the WM-20 wasn't an afterthought. It was a demonstration of what Sony was technically capable of. Next year , WM-RV10 and WM-R15 had a cassette shaped tuner pack as an accessory and for the first time in a Sony walkman , a common practice from several manufacturers in those early years of portable stereo ,it was like a step backwards from Sony but the message was already sent. Hideo Honma - Nobuyuki Sato Patent title : PORTABLE TAPE PLAYER WITH RADIO IN LID Inventors : Hideo Honma - Nobuyuki Sato Assignee: Sony Corporation, Tokyo, Japan Flled : Mar. 17 1989 Related U.S. Patent Documents Reissue of: Patent No.:4,651,312 (This patent has no. : Re. 33,497 and probably contains a few alterations for the similar WM-F30 Ed.) Filed: Aug. 23, 1984 ABSTRACT A combination portable magnetic tape cassette player and multiband radio receiver in which the sensitive elements of the radio receiver are arranged within a hinged, plastic cover of the combined apparatus and the circuitry of the radio receiver is formed on a printed circuit board having an AM band antenna mounted thereto, whereby the AM receiver antenna is electromagnetically unshielded by the plastic cover and the combined tape player and radio receiver is of a size substantially equal to that of the tape player alone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kazuo Ichikawa Patent title : COMBINED TAPE PLAYER AND RADIO TUNER Inventor: Kazuo Ichikawa Assignee: Sony Corporation, Tokyo, Japan Filed: Nov. 10, 1987 Foreign Application Priority Data May 22, 1987 [JP] Japan CLAIM : The ornamental design for a combined tape player and radio tuner, as shown and described.
It's interesting, Sony were pretty much the only manufacturer who championed the whole organic/ergonomic approcah to walkman design. I know this was very much a Sony thing at the time but no other manufacturer took them on at this. From the simplistic ergonomic beauty of the WM-F5 right through to the WM-701 10-years later. It's odd, the other major players held onto their own design 'brands' throughout Walkman history to the point that it was possible to guess the brand without reading the badge. For example, Aiwa had a very fussy yet functional approach, Panasonic maintained a 'quality' look and feel whilst Toshiba held onto their position for the cheapest, crappiest looking designs. Sanyo were more leftfield and in their somewhat conservative approach. Sony were obviously the kings of Walkman design. The glorious WM-2 being the case in point. This unit sold purely on it's design. It lacked build quality and features so why did it sell more than any other walkman in history despite it's $130 price tag. It was 100% its design and what it stood for. It was just one of those iconic designs that stood out in history as something you wanted to own, more so I'd say than a Gameboy or iPod. What a great place to be the Sony walkman design laboratory must have been in the 80's Great post Machaneus
Thanks A O for the excellent overview, when the WM-2 appeared on the market (1 Feb.1981 ) , about 18 months after the TPS-l2, everybody was trying to copy or present a better Tps-l2 ,I can imagine the shock from the compact size, the ergonomic inclined control buttons (you can control a WM-2 with one hand looking in front of the walkman and not the side or laying on table) , around the designing studios of some serious contenders.It was the first walkman ever to be designed exclusively under the walkman concept and not a transformed pressman, as you pointed out :"It was 100% its design and what it stood for." Probably an explanation can be found behind the words of Hisashi Hamada a designer that was interviewed as a walkman first generation user in the walkman 20th anniversary special edition Japanese MONO magazine : "They say that Japanese are good at emulating,but the Walkman was a truly original product that was later copied by foreign companies......" Toshio Asai denies that he knew about Andreas Pavel patent and I believe him ,at least at the beginning ,after all the modified Pressman was only a toy build for himself and his colleges .When things began getting serious and Sony found that there was already a patent for such a concept that must have been a very uncomfortable moment. Sony was always looking for patent exclusivity as that is very profitable business (see Trinitron)! Nevertheless whoever was the father, Sony was definitely the mother, she nurtured her child in a very convincing way maybe motivated even stronger by the patent situation. If we see the Sony walkman history from the beginning in 1979 to this day with open mind ,meaning see behind what medium is used (cassette , memory stick, hard drive) or fancy " lipstick" or "bean" styled designs there is an uninterrupted straight evolution line with some exceptional models , even HiEnd as we speak . The mother still cares for her child.
Did i say how deep i like this particular topic? Informative and inspiring. Makes you wannna collect walkmans instantly.
I already owned a few Aiwas Sonys and (do I need to point out?) Sanyos... but after sustained exposure to this priceless thread my walkman fever is rising damatically...
This is making me dig out my Walkman collection. Just when I thought we were running low on Walkman topics...this awesome post comes along.
GABRIELE MIRONE I'm excited to present you Gabriele Mirone an extremely talented product designer that so happened and he has designed ,among many other products, the Sony WM GX-688 walkman and the Sony CMT ED-2 mini hi-fi system. A European designer for a Sony walkman is certainly a rare occasion .Gabriele Mirone was born in Italy and works many years now in United Kingdom. He worked at Sony Design Centre Europe from April 1998 to April 2003. Here you can see his work (note also two Sony walkmans that look like prototype designs ,sadly the picture has low resolution). : Gabriele Mirone Sony WM GX-688 is one of only a handful of cassette walkman models that Sony produced in the 21st century ,this one being from 2001, in other words it contains decades of sony walkman evolution, a gran performer ,I can confirm, as I'm using regularly mine, it has radio ,recording function,very low power consumption,clear sound, all this in a small package and a superb design to match. Sony CMT ED-2 one of the most elegant designed mini hi-fi systems ever.
Amazing work, you are literally preserving history here and the work goes into this is invaluable and I think everyone cantvget enough of this thread, thank you.
Thank you T-ster it is your appreciation and dedication and all of the s2g community that is giving so much that is only natural to give back as much us I can, also it is fun and a great feeling to be among you all.
