Walking Away

I was surprised when I saw a news story today that Sony has ceased production of the cassette Walkman. Surprised because I assumed this happened years ago. Almost 9 years to the day after Apple introduced us to the iPod, Sony has finally thrown in the towel. The Sony Walkman was not an overnight success. Introduced in 1979 in Japan, it failed to make much headway initially and it was considered to be a strange idea to walk around town listening to your tunes. However, despite media criticism, Sony persevered and ultimately sold 200 million units over the next 30 years.

I bought one similar to that in the picture in 1981 or thereabouts. The headphones had bright orange earpads and, if you were going to be out for more than a few hours, the bulky extra battery pack was a necessity. Measuring about 5 x 3 inches and with a capacity of about 90 minutes on a standard cassette,it is certainly a far cry from the latest iPod Nano which is about 1 inch square and can hold around 200 hours of music.

Although Sony subsequently lost it's way in the portable music player market, those of us who enjoy music on the move owe a debt to the company and it's co-founder, the late Akio Morita, for persevering with what was considered at the time to be an outlandish product.