The Sony Walkman Turns 40 Today
Ahh, the Sony Walkman. You weren't cool unless you had one attached to your belt with the headphones around your neck. The likes of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Tom Petty and more spent time in my portable box in high school.
Today, July 1, in 1979, was the world's first taste of a portable music player according to click2houston.com. Pop in your favorite cassette album, clip it to your belt and you were off.
As music moved to CD's in the 90's, Sony introduced the Discman. We could take our CD's on the go now. It was a little frustrating if our travels got a little rough as the CD's would skip. It was even worse if you had one of those cassette adapters plugged into your car stereo.
With the emergence of digital music and the iPod in the early 2000's, the Walkman and Discman phased out.
The Walkman did have a bit of a resurgence when Marvel's Guardians of Galaxy hit theaters. Chris Pratt's character, Peter Quill, used the Walkman to entertain him on his space adventures.
The model he used, the TPS-L2, is one of the original models according to hollywoodreporter.com. It caused the prices of that Walkman model to skyrocket. Ebay listings still have it hovering between $200 to $550.
Remember kids, the next time you plug your headphones into your phone to stream your favorite tunes, our generation was the first to experience it. And we didn't need an internet connection.