I started this thread a few years ago after finding information on personal portable players. I thought I should update this first post to reflect the contents, most of this information is found on the internet and it relates to what we would consider portable audio and video units, with some watches thrown in and other oddball portable electronic devices. You will find reviews, press releases, patent information, electronic upgrades and just about anything related to personal audio devices and their offshouts. Feel free to discuss or add anything that would be of value. The main core is portable audio or video players, the accessories, the headphones and the people that helped develope them. Here is the Walkman Entry from the Encyclopedia of Radio: Sotza posted some great information about Walkman Designers. I went down the hole and started searching Google Patents and found some really cool stuff. It's getting a little late here so I'll post a link to someones design for a strap on speaker system. Pretty cool and stupid at the same time! https://patents.google.com/patent/US4764962A/en?q=walkman&scholar
Somewhat interesting take on Walkmans of 1984 https://patents.google.com/scholar/17493135834785666654?q=walkman&before=19820101&scholar Edit, unfortunately the book was pulled, here was the extract Hosokawa, S. (1984). The walkman effect. Popular Music, 4, The walkman – a cassette recorder for headphone listening. This gadget, originally invented and marketed by Sony in the spring of 1980 in Japan, and soon exported, has become known throughout the West, however awkward its Japanese-made English may sound. As its use has proliferated, so have the arguments about its effects. One example, a report in Nouvel Observateur, was cited by Philippe Sollers (Sollers 1981, p. 50). The interviewer, apparently, asks young people (eighteen to twenty-two years old) the following: whether men with the walkman are human or not; whether they are losing contact with reality; whether the relations between eyes and ears are changing radically; whether they are psychotic or schizophrenic; whether they are worried about the fate of humanity. One of the interviewees replies: your question is out-of-date. All of these problems of communication and incommunicability, according to him, belong to the sixties and the seventies. The eighties are not the same at all. They are the years of autonomy, of an intersection of singularities in the construction of discourses. Soon, he says, you will have every kind of film on video at home, every kind of classical music on only one tape. This is what gives me pleasure.
I agree with much of what is said there, it can sometimes seem like the headphone user is being anti-social by 'not willing to communicate' but if he or she is listening to music in public then they would most likely be talking to strangers anyway which is something many parents discourage their children from doing. Although I disagree that the headphone user is being 'dumb', 'childish', or 'narcissistic'. On the contrary, if a group of friends who are wearing headphone, listen to their music quietly, they are actually being polite members of society because they are focusing on their music rather than talking loudly amongst themselves and disturbing others. He makes the point that it's very difficult to think and focus on other things when listening to music which is true, although if someone asks me a quick question and I happen to be using my Sony TPS-L2, I get around this by holding down the hotline button which lowers the music volume enough for me to think clearly (if someone wants to have a chat with me, I will turn the music off completely and take off my headphones so as not to appear rude). Interesting read.
The Walkman is named the #1 top music invention of the last 50 years! The article is eight years old so something might have changed, I'm surprised at the amount of articles about Walkmans in The Telegraph Newspaper. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...med-top-music-invention-of-last-50-years.html T3's list of Top Most Important Musical Innovations of the last 50 years: 1. Sony Walkman 2. MP3 format 3. Apple iPod 1st Generation 4. CD 5. Napster 6. Dolby 7. DAB radio 8. Boombox 9. Sonos Multi-Room Music System 10. Panasonic Technics DJ deck
This guy might have been a pioneer in personal cassette players, melding a camera, radio binoculars and tape recorder! Too far ahead of it's time in 1976.
He came back 10 years later with a better version! "A portable entertainment apparatus capable of being held in the palm of the hand includes a multitude of individual yet dependent components arranged within a cubic casing with at least one component operable from and accessible on each of the six planar walls of the casing. The components include binoculars, spot and floodlights; camera, tape recorder/player, AM-FM radio, calendar/clock, calculator and compass all disposed within the casing and having all exposed portions thereof either recessed or flush with the casing walls. The camera is normally fully hidden within the casing and utilizes, through a displaceable mirror, the lens of one of the binocular tubes both as a view finder and to direct an image to the camera shutter"
An interesting take on the Sony Walkman, just a preview of "Doing Cultural Studies, The Story of the Sony Walkman" Not all pages are available but it might be a good book to pick up. https://books.google.com/books?id=Gop0dQGKm5sC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
I have this book! It's an interesting read, but it's not a technical book. As the title indicates, it talks about the cultural and behavioural influences of the walkman. It has a lot of cool Sony ads with different models from back in the day
Pocket Stereo's Make It Big, Popular Mechanics 1981 "By now, there are at least a dozen pocket stereo tape players" https://books.google.com/books?id=tdgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62&dq=pocket+stereos+make+it+big&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit0JbA2c7XAhUo4IMKHUozBSoQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=pocket stereos make it big&f=false
The New York Times is showing up high in my searches, here's some cool old articles. There is a limit to number you can read, hopefully you can read them all (and there's a lot more) How the iPod Ran Circles Around the Walkman http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/b...-the-ipod-ran-circles-around-the-walkman.html "The Walkman was nothing but hardware, and surprisingly simple" Stereo for One: A Brief Unaccompanied History http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/weekinreview/05barry.html "the ocean of humankind is cluttered with solitary islands of disengagement" Origins; Walkman Sounded Bell for Cyberspace http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/29/technology/origins-walkman-sounded-bell-for-cyberspace.html. ''They had one on display and the guy told me, 'You're not going to believe this." Who Made That Earbud? https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-made-that-earbud.html "the major burst of earphone innovation did not occur until the 1980s"
Thanks autoreverser, I know if I don't bookmark this stuff I'll forget about it, and with the internet it's cool being able to see all this information.
"Sound; 'PERSONAL' STEREO BANISHES BLARE" New York Times, 1981 "blare is out and sonic privacy is in" http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/17/arts/sound-personal-stereo-banishes-blare.html
"PERSONAL STEREO MARKET SWELLS" New York Times, 1981 "The portable stereo craze actually started three or four years ago with the so-called boom boxes - those blaring behemoths that can weigh up to 30 pounds and announce their presence a block away" http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/05/business/personal-stereo-market-swells.html
More from the New York Times "CONSUMER'S WORLD: Coping; With Pocket-Size Stereos" 1989 http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/04/style/consumer-s-world-coping-with-pocket-size-stereos.html "WHAT'S NEW IN JAPANESE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS; IN NEW PRODUCTS, SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL" 1983 http://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/08/b...onics-in-new-products-small-is-beautiful.html "Consumer Saturday; HEADSETS AND EAR DAMAGE" 1982 http://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/17/style/consumer-saturday-headsets-and-ear-damage.html "SALES OF STEREOS ARE LESS SOUND AS AUDIO INDUSTRY'S MARKETS SLIP" 1982 http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/23/b...s-sound-as-audio-industry-s-markets-slip.html "MATSUSHITA: THE CAUTIOUS GIANT" 1982 http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/05/business/matsushita-the-cautious-giant.html?pagewanted=1
Aiwa Personal Portable A Champ Loaded With Features 1986 http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-08-08/entertainment/8602270454_1_aiwa-headphone-remote Luxury Aiwa Pocket Stereo Is Inconspicuous Consumption, Chicago Tribune 1989 "If owning a BMW no longer shows that you`ve arrived, you might want to consider the Aiwa HS-PX900." http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-06-23/entertainment/8902120032_1_aiwa-lead-acid-battery-tape Walkman And Friends: A Guide To Pocket Stereo, Chicago Tribune 1989 "That left other Japanese companies no choice but to outdo Sony by naming their imitations such things as Cassette Boy." http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...903100686_1_sony-headphone-stereo-akio-morita
Here's a bunch of articles from the Chicago Tribune, Sizing Up Sony`s New Credit Card Size Walkman Radio http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...le-nickel-cadmium-battery-sony-recharger-unit Advanced Wm-dd9 Walkman Loosens Resolve Of Addicts "I attended my Walkman Anonymous meeting with bowed head. I confessed to buying another Walkman" http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...nt/9003280670_1_headphone-rechargeable-stereo No Compromise In Quality With Sony`s Tinier Walkman "It`s the first Walkman radio supplied with both a head band and an arm band" http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-04-25/entertainment/8601300266_1_srf-batteries-stereo July 1979: Walkman spawned a revolution http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...56_1_tapes-chairman-akio-morita-orange-button A sound revolution http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...eo-devices-selfish-experience-record-function Newest Sony Walkman Nearly Has It All "Sony also completely eliminates the battery compartment from the player itself." http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...t/8702280484_1_sony-tape-rechargeable-battery Listening Often Tells More About Tape Than Tests In Lab http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...01170916_1_basf-tape-basf-shell-cassette-deck Unwinding Mysteries Of Magnetic Tape http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...903270706_1_tape-companies-magnetic-tape-deck The Long And Short Of Audio Cassette Tape Repair http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-09-18/entertainment/9203250074_1_new-shell-hub-splice
Buy ’em while supplies last, Japan Times 2002 “In a way, Akihabara has acted as the launchpad for many popular products,” https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2002/07/14/general/buy-em-while-supplies-last/#.WnFRcU2Wzx8
The Google Patent Search Engine just got better, here's a new one from aiwa, a polarizing design from 2002, I'm not sure I'd waste my money getting a patent on this one.... https://www.google.com/patents/USD4...ved=0ahUKEwjI-Y7ggobZAhUJZKwKHVIhA2UQ6AEIJzAA
