Hello, for a research project as well as personal collecting, would any experts know of the different types of media that the Walkman name has been placed upon? Its common knowledge that physical media like cassettes, CDs, and minidisks were under the name, but were there others? as far as I know, there are the aforementioned formats as well as digital, DAT, and a single instance of a microcassette (M-50). were there exit any other types? And for name-brand sake I am not including the Sony PS-F7 or F9 as while they are the closest thing to a walkman for vinyl, it does not have the tried and true logo. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Gavin A.
As well as numerous MP3 players that are still being made today how about a memory stick player https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-NW-MS11-Memory-Stick-Walkman/dp/B000063LF2
There's definitely a Sony NW-HD1 Walkman, which is basically a hard drive Walkman. Oh, and don't forget the Sony Ericson! It got the Walkman-W-logo on it and was marketed as a Walkman-phone of some sort if I recall correctly ("Listen to your music on your phone" or something like that). Note that the modern Walkman digital media players are (strictly seen) also streaming- and SD-card-Walkmans too. Besides DAT and MD there's also the Sony NT cassette. Other formats are the minicassette and picocassette. Though I'm not sure if any of these officially had a Walkman logo stamped on portable Sony devices. I don't remember that at least, so probably uninteresting for you. And if you want a goofier looking version of the one Longman linked, NW-MS7. I believe it was older (and looks a bit like an electric razor with a display).
There was also a standalone equalizer in the Walkman line, the Sony SEQ-50. I don't think Sony made any other models of that, though? Going in a more modern direction, there's also the SRF-H11 integrated radio-headphone that is part of the S2 series. While it does not actually carry the Walkman logo on the unit itself, it is printed on the packaging & manuals, and "Walkman" is printed on as part of the model name. The S2 series itself is actually composed of many other walkmans of various formats (cassette, CD, MD, radio), neither of which seems to have the Walkman logo on it. In fact, the cassette ones (e.g. WM-FS222 & WM-FS566) don't even have the name "Walkman" on the face unit! Maybe Sony thought putting "Walkman" and "WM-" would be redundant... In addition to players, I think that later on they do have some headphones/earphones under the Walkman brand as well?
I believe to have read somewhere (most probably in one of @Mister X archaeological diggings!) that first Sony Discman, D-50, had a CD-Walkman name to it, then they slapped a Discman name to it. Maybe I am wrong. More research needed...
Oh, I just remembered that there were Walkman-branded cassettes as well. Both sample/bundled stuff and openly sold blanks. My favorite gotta be the ones with the spinning legs (this: http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/index.php?content_oid=415913240339063165&board_oid=193392314111653483). The demo cassettes would be something like the YEKS-12 and YEKS-63. Perhaps those weren't what you asked about, since they're more like bundled stuff, so stuff like these are probably more on your terms of the Walkman brand in a product: https://www.retrostylemedia.co.uk/product/sony-walkman-60-ferric-blank-audio-cassette-tapes http://blog.livedoor.jp/chama1969/archives/51594719.html That would be interesting. And it got me thinking, what's the first discman with the discman branding? If I recall correctly, the D-50 was not yet branded as a Discman.
Here's a Walkman Version of the portable CD Player, maybe a D-82? And don't forget the Walkman Gumstick Battery on the same page, from 1988.
Another small addition: The NW-WS413 is basically a sports mp3 Walkman integrated in headphones, so the headphones and mp3 player are one and the same thing. It's also branded. While at batteries, I believe I've seen a promo image for a tape Walkman which had two AA batteries with a Walkman branding on them, though it was probably a mockup. I can't find that image anymore, but it's likely not anything you could buy or got with the model it was showed with. Or so I assume.
The funny thing is that various people at Sony didn't like the Walkman name at first hence the alternative names Soundabout and Stowaway.
@Mister X thanks for posting these! Those were the ones I meant! I think I also saw such with the second logo (the straight, bold one, before the current one) on AA batteries on some advertisement image… or it was with a Sony logo. I'm not 100% sure with those. Do you happen to know if they also made them with the logo that you can see on their packaging?
I'll look, I'm grabbing photos from the Japanese Sites. I bet they had fun and had a few variations of the script. I don't remember the batteries, I don't think they came over here, Duracell and Energizer dominated the market.
The CD Walkman from above looks suspiciously small. Hmm... Oh, right, it does say that it is for 8-cm CDs. Ok then. It looks very nice! Unlike the ugly Philips or HP:
Googled D-82 CD walkman, found some nice pictures here: https://www.just-cd.com/post/sony-cd-walkman-d-82-8cm-portable-cd-player-1 Yes, it is a 8-cm CD player. Without shock protection and MP3 capability (and without DVD-Audio capability) it would be pretty useless to me - good for 20 minutes of audio, three times less than a 60-minute cassette. I know, I know, it is late 1980s - early 1990s model, still pretty useless I am surprised that Sony did not come up with some sort of a cover to protect the lens when the top lid is opened. I wonder why the ad above shows a clearly caucasian dude despite that the ad targeted Japanese market? At least the girl looks Japanese.
The D-88 was more impressive in that despite being a similar size it could play full sized CDs. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/74456/smallest-discman-ever-made-was-smaller-cd I don't think it would work very well in a pocket though I actually saw one of these for sale in Comet once. It seemed as silly an idea then as now.
I think even with the limitations, it's the same reason I want one today, they're so neat, just a tiny gadget when we wanted everything smaller, especially here in the USA where everything was huge in the 70's. I find Japanese Advertising incredible interesting even adding the different language angle. Last time I was there, two years ago, my buddy was explaining about a bearded 50+ year old American being an advertising star, he said if you look he's in a ton of print and commercials, sure enough I saw at least four different ad campaigns with his face.
Longman found and posted one of these in the mega-thread sale, here's one in Japan in beautiful red, a Walkman DVD Player D-VM1. The flat part is a portable viewing screen. https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Sony-D-VM1-Portable-Player-Walkman/dp/B078ZRDYKS
