Mura from 1982, I actually have a Mura Portable Radio, found it when I was moving my storage unit. They have a nice build quality and not a cheap as you might think, somebody spent a lot of money on advertising back in the early 80's. HiFi Stereo Review from 1982
The Sanyo Sportable SPT-1500, maybe the first, and only, portable cassette player with pedometer and calorie counter
Who doesn't love microcassettes, these early units are very well built but no stereo. The PearlcorderSD is super nice with the D-System of attachable modules, the boom mic is the rarest and makes the unit look really cool. Check out the IBM Model 284 with the data disc, maybe Techmoan will find one to review, I'd love to know more about it.
I love little portable tvs, hopefully you guys aren't geting bored by these articles, I just snagged another oddball, I'll post it when it arrives. The Epson Elf from 1984 looks like a pretty cool micro-TV and one of the first with a color screen. These were a huge deal when they came out but unfortunately they were expensive and the only time I saw them being used was at sporting events where they could watch the replays before they had big-screen scoreboards. Casio was the game changer with very inexpensive color screens but they just didn't look as cool as the first generation.
Some more Technics CD Goodness, the Technics SL-XP7, the smallest CD player of 1985 from the 1985 Summer Electronics Show in Chicago, the full article is here. https://archive.org/details/modern-electronics-september-1985/page/n19
Sharp Model MD-D10 MiniDisc, it's so nice seeing a write up that takes portable audio seriously, Len Feldman did several of the reviews I've posted. From 1994, Popular Electronics Magazine found on www.AmericanRadioHistory.com Gavin Report 1991
The very same issue of Popular Electronics also has the Gizmo Section that has the Sony Model MZ-R2 MiniDisc Player. Check out the small article at the end for the MiniDisc Data Drive, I'm really surprised that didn't take off, I feel like the MP3 revolution might have happened a few years earlier with this equipment if it had been more widespread.
Sony SRF-42 Stereo AM Walkman We still have a few AM Stereo stations, I'd love to find one of these units and see what they sound like. The only time I've seen a AM Stereo Unit was in an early Pontiac Fiero but there were no stations in the area at the time.
Gavin Report was for radio guys or programming directors, this article talks about the merits of preset tuning and recording with portable cassette players. I would love to have seen the Great White/Kix/Tesla Show in the attached article, and what happend to the hot band All!gator! I.R.S. Records handled mostly punk, alternative bands but I'm not familar with the hottest Florida Band at that time.
MiniDisc made some inroads for professional use, my big Denon Deck was from a radio station, these component units would be nice to find but I'd check on what the signal outputs look like, it may be something other than RCA jacks.
The Personal Portable Revolution from High Fidelity August 1981 This is a great first generation guide, it's amazing how fast the copy-cats came out. https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-High-Fidelity/80s/High-Fidelity-1981-08.pdf
