When Was the Walkman Introduced?
Personal music players have become commonplace for people around the world. But it wasn't until the invention of the Walkman, by Sony, that personalized, portable music players actually existed. Understanding when these iconic music players debuted reveals the technological leaps that made today's technology possible.
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History
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Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita are credited with devising the premise of the Walkman in 1979. Using cassette technology, the Sony TPS-L2, later dubbed the "Walkman," allowed a person to listen to music of their choice using lightweight stereo headphones. Though many investors thought the product would be a flop, Ibuka and Morita believed that people would appreciate being able to listen to their cassettes away from a home or car stereo. Sony staged an elaborate press release in Yoyogi park for the Walkman. The press release started by giving one machine to each reporter, with Sony personnel instructing the reporters to listen to the tape within. The Walkman proved popular among reporters and debuted to much fanfare in the Japanese market later that year. It made its first international jump to the United States in early 1980, and then was distributed worldwide.
Significance
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Prior to the Walkman's introduction, cassette recordings were usually played in home stereos, car audio or the occasional tape recorder with a built-in speaker. By miniaturizing the player function, removing the ability to record and devising smaller, lighter headphones, the Walkman allowed a portability and privacy that previous platforms did not. The included headphones were themselves a vast improvement over previous headphones that were used in audio recording studios and at home. The older, larger headphones were heavy, weighing around 400 grams, making wearing them awkward with a new, portable system. The new headphones weighed only 45 grams and did not cause the wearer the discomfort that larger headphones did.
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Types
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Originally called the Discman, the Sony Walkman CD debuted in 1984 under the model number D-50. Like the cassette Walkman, the Discman took advantage of a new technology that was just emerging at the time: compact discs. Similarly, the Discman allowed portability to this new media, but unlike the Walkman, performance initially suffered when playing music in the Discman. The optical reading laser that read the CD would respond poorly to the jostling and bouncing associated with walking, so Sony had to devise a solution. They installed on-board computer memory chips that allowed the Discman to pre-read the song and store a bit of it at a time on the memory chips so that if the laser lost its place, the music would not skip. This technology was marketed as "ESP" for "Electronic Skip Protection" and became standard on Discman models. In 1988, Sony officially changed the name of the Discman to Walkman CD.
Size
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Size was always a selling point in Walkman series player, and was a motivation for Sony to embark upon producing the MiniDisc format under the Walkman model. In 1992, Sony debuted the format which placed music on a disc roughly one-third the size of a standard CD. The MiniDisc never realized the popularity of the CD, however, and subsequently, the MiniDisc Walkman was a middling success. Attempting to recapture its reputation for the Walkman's cutting edge personal music technology, Sony introduced the NW-MS70D in 2003. The NW-MS70D was Sony's first true MP3 player, and was an attempt to wrest the personal music player market away from Apple's iPod. Unfortunately, the buggy nature of its programming, low-memory capacity and high price cost the company dearly. Attempting to emulate the Apple iTunes and iPod model, Sony debuted its proprietary ATRAC format the same year, but it too was a disappointment.
Time Frame
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In 2006, because it had found itself unpopular in the MP3 market and with declining demand for its older products, Sony Ericsson released the Walkman name for cell phones. The technology used to make earlier MP3 players and flash-drive players was incorporated in the new Walkman phones and became popular. Since 2006, at least eight different versions of the Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone have been developed and marketed.
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