What Was A Sony Walkman? A Dirt Nap City Dead End

Every time you throw in some bluetooth ear buds and go for a walk, did you know that you are following in the footsteps of the OG of personal soundtracks? The Sony Walkman was introduced in 1979 and was originally designed out of a desire that the head of Sony had at the time to listen to music on his walks! This innovation eventually lead to the Walkman with a radio built in, the disc-man, the MP3 player, the iPod and even the Microsoft Zoon! If you ever owned a Sony Walkman, you'll definitely want to check out this trip down technology memory lane - and spoiler alert - this one leads to a dead end!

Transcript

Alex: 0:05

Kelly, what's up, man?

Kelly: 0:07

Alex, good to see you, buddy.

Alex: 0:10

You know, you know, we're about to do a dead ends

Kelly: 0:14

Oh, I love these. These are fun. Yeah,

Alex: 0:17

these are things that normally we talked about anymore. This is when we talk about anything. It's not a anymore, right? Yeah,

Kelly: 0:28

we've had some fun with these with CD ROMs and photo all kinds of fun stuff.

Alex: 0:35

So I know, we say we don't take requests. That's requests, you've taken number of requests. You've said that number of requests from your mom.

Kelly: 0:48

I think I think when it comes to this, this duo like kind of a

Alex: 0:53

good cop. Bad Cop. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not making an tell you we have a super listener. Chris from Austin.

Kelly: 1:04

Oh, Chris from Austin. Yeah, I think I've I think stuff. I think I know. Yes. Yeah.

Alex: 1:10

And he recommended a subject for dead ends. That I don't know if you have a list, but I have a list of next one up anyways.

Kelly: 1:22

You're not only the mean one, you're also the gonna

Alex: 1:26

sound like complete kidding, Chris from Austin. up, buddy. But it gave me a little lift under my wings to the people are looking for. Chris is kind of the the, what our of our listening audience? Like I think of Chris When I there.

Kelly: 1:48

Yes. I think he even has a dirt nap city t shirt.

Alex: 1:52

the first one? He did? Yeah, he

Kelly: 1:55

got the very first third nap city t shirt that'll Hold on to that Chris. Just like a just like a AOL CD

Alex: 2:02

Have you ever mentioned Patreon on here? Or is it a

Kelly: 2:07

Oh, no, no, it's not a secret at all. As a matter of Patreon as well out from Austin. So

Alex: 2:13

how would somebody what is Patreon? And how would

Kelly: 2:18

Well, Patreon is a way to support the show have to pay every month for a hosting, we have to pay for recording. And then of course, there's just our time and all we're not trying to make a bundle on this. But we're also so if you were to go to the Patreon link, which is in the join for a very small dollar amount, you would get all get a t shirt or a sticker right out of the gate, because least for the first few people who support us on Patreon. So just sign up and it's like three or four or five bucks a our show. And when we have hundreds or 1000s of you, this full time.

Alex: 3:03

Hundreds of 1000s hundreds or 1000s. So if we now hundreds with an S or B 200 200 200. Since we as soon we're both quitting our jobs

Kelly: 3:19

at three bucks. That's$600. That

Alex: 3:25

I think that's a good plan. I'm gonna go tell my

Kelly: 3:28

Yes, yes. I'm not going to tell my wife a secret. She

Alex: 3:35

Chris, and I want to talk about the Sony Walkman. Sony Walkman. Let me just take you back to the mid 70s. And up in Michigan, we used to ski and we had a family friend who he skied. So he took like, you know, the cassette players you know, the little flat one with the big flat ones. Yeah, with the record button was red. Yep. He would take one of that around his chest like a suicide bomber. Duct tape that would put on these big cans, like the ones that we're that kind of had in the 70s that were heavy. Yeah, you into the tape player and he would play music while he is predates the Walkman by about five years. So

Kelly: 4:41

he's playing like Sonny and Cher at this point.

Alex: 4:43

Um, I actually think he was into a band called Roxy I do remember Roxy Music. Yeah, yeah, he was into early

Kelly: 4:58

Sort of the earliest New Wave Yeah, yeah,

Alex: 5:01

yeah, exactly. And the thing is that even taped down this and that tape didn't do well with bumps anytime there you're, you're going over it we kind of the shock

Kelly: 5:19

probably didn't do well with didn't do well with the

Alex: 5:23

um I don't remember that I just remember it being real wearing gloves and just having to open your coat and then and and then and then like I said whenever there was kind skip like a record would but it would sometimes turn off. would lighten would get hit Yeah, just all kinds of But at the same time he was doing this in our little town Sony Masaru Ibuka was doing the same thing while he was to his music. Now this guy was the head of a big company that So we asked one of the development teams to make him to while he was on his morning walks. Okay, they came up with and brought it to market. You know what year it came out.

Kelly: 6:23

I'm gonna guess 8219 7979 79

Alex: 6:30

It came out it was a cassette player, and it sold money would be about $680.

Kelly: 6:40

Okay, so So let me just interject real quick because I probably was around 82 was the first time I saw one. And I the campers, one of the other kids I was, you know, I was 12 old, one of the other kids had had one with him. And I thing. You know, he was listening to music on it. Let know, in portable, you could walk around with it, you could whatever you wanted to do. And I remember when I got back was like, I really want that. And I remember checking the and something dollars.

Alex: 7:22

It was a model. Well, that was yeah, 50 and 79. So got popular, and everybody wanted one, and they got a 8283 Yeah, we're it's probably over $200 Which again, in bucks.

Kelly: 7:38

Yeah. And I just remember being shocked at how wow, this is just a cassette player. But it was really the that did it right.

Alex: 7:48

Yeah, absolutely. They thought originally that was a month and it sold 30,000 In the first two months. They they stopped production of the cassette Walkman.

Kelly: 8:03

Probably 95

Alex: 8:06

of these things are always a little later than you

Kelly: 8:10

was the last Wow. still buy a cassette Walkman in

Alex: 8:14

and it's funny because I went to eBay and checked I expensive. If you had like, No, you can still buy one for Walkman. In fact, you can buy some of the originals from called Walkman yet. When they when they came out in the US in Japan which is kind of when you think about Walkman is doesn't make a lot of sense in English. Now it does. Yeah,

Kelly: 8:46

you said that you said the Sony founder wanted to go makes sense. And he was

Alex: 8:52

a man that's true. Yeah. But it's not really an English the first one was called the sound about

Kelly: 9:02

okay, and that was a Sony product or something else

Alex: 9:05

it was the sony sound about which was the same thing call it Walkman in Japan. In Australia and Sweden they call they call it the Sony stowaway but really the Walkman is the And and it's what we we know today but I found a sound$48 like an original 1979 Sound about

Kelly: 9:32

it's still in the packaging or no

Alex: 9:36

gently used

Kelly: 9:37

had gently used Yeah

Alex: 9:39

45 years later it was gently is double A batteries. that, that's kind of a game changer. You didn't have to that. Just throw some double A batteries in that thing and million of these cassette players before it was all said everybody had one by the end of its run right at some at later they came up with the the disc man you remember the

Kelly: 10:11

Now that had a lot of problem with skipping. You anything with that it would skip Yeah,

Alex: 10:16

they changed the name of disc man to CD Walkman. I keep that Walkman brand, but I like describe better, they players that are kind of still going into that walk Walkman thing anymore.

Kelly: 10:37

You remember the Microsoft Zune? I think we talked to

Alex: 10:41

him before. Yeah. Yeah, that was kind of a failure, introduced Walkman in the Oxford English Dictionary, really made it right. When just anything to refer to a Walkman. It doesn't have to be the Sony brand anymore. You

Kelly: 11:01

I think with I think with older people, people are younger. But people who grew up with that, you know, you somebody who's listening to their phone, you know, who has into their phone, or your air pods, or you know, whatever you're listening to, you could say turn off that Walkman, Walkman. And people would know what you were talking about?

Alex: 11:25

Absolutely. They ended a radio in 82. That might be the on to.

Kelly: 11:32

So so let me let me talk about that real quick. getting me one. And I have to say my parents usually got me throughout my life, when I wanted something, we wouldn't wait a little while and then they would get the slightly more advanced things. So for example, I got an A television And then television was sort of next generation. We've

Alex: 12:00

established that you're kind of silver spoon

Kelly: 12:06

I remember when they got me the they got me a for a certain camcorder. And they got me a better one that the Walkman, they got me a Toshiba, and the Toshiba. a radio, it did the cassette player thing, but it had auto the tape and play the other side, which I don't know if had actually pop the tape out and flip it over. But also it of a cassette tape. I wish I still had this thing that was the cassette slot, and it was the radio module.

Alex: 12:43

Remember those had like an antenna inside it?

Kelly: 12:47

I guess I don't, I can't remember what it looked Toshiba. But yeah, I was so happy when I got that thing. years. Well,

Alex: 12:57

it really changed society. When you think about listen to your own music privately. In fact, a lot of about, about some of these constructs called like things like this. But the idea is that you had control over people say the world changed the day that the Walkman was how we move about our world. Here's something that's crazy, 1997, the number of people that walked for exercise could say it's because of the Walkman. Or you could, you answering this demand. It might have been Jane Fonda and talking about something coming at the right time, and mean, you could just have control over your own world. for the first time out sold vinyl records. And yes, portability. Yeah, of course. Now the founder of Sony, he kind of shutting down and putting these this Walkman on, have those in public. So he had what they call a hotline these on some of the early ones, where if someone was button and had a microphone, so it would, it would make the what the person was trained to say to you, Hey, I like a that people would want to talk to you and it would be rude to was removed because what happened and we know this now by having control of your own environment and wearing busy. And nobody does come up to you and try to talk to you that's a bad thing. And some say that's a good thing. It's with a Walkman, as you know makes boring things car drive, it can be a soundtrack to a boring car And this idea of auditors looking is the idea that you by putting headphones on the people don't mess with you, in invisible. It's almost like wearing dark sunglasses. It's some might say that's a bad thing that we are disengaging it's control. And sometimes when we're out in the public, engage with other people. And this is a way to kind of mute have a secret from the rest of the world. They can't hear found that people that wear headphones tend to be more because they're enjoying the world around them.

Kelly: 15:59

So you know, you know that when we do these soundtrack for a boring recording session. I'm has headphones. These headphones. Oh, don't don't have music playing I'm reading.

Alex: 16:13

I thought you meant that we are the boring soundtrack

Kelly: 16:18

yeah. That's man. This is getting really meta, isn't

Alex: 16:22

You know, there's a statue. You remember the ones? Yeah, yeah, there's a statue of a sports Walkman in of the Walkman. They erected a statue in downtown Tokyo. So add that to the list of things we need to check out statue of

Kelly: 16:47

also, you know the other sort of, I guess, next quest. And then the new Apple VR headset, or AR augmented they're calling it something else is something computing. it. I can't remember augmented computing or spatial they're calling it. But if you haven't seen it, Casey Neistat around New York City wearing a set of those glasses. And were talking about the pass through for audio. Now they So you can see everything is going around. You can hear you can also see you could be listening to dirt nap city, videos while you're walking down the street and still see It's great. It's

Alex: 17:40

kind of transparent. You can kind of see through the right now. It doesn't make you invisible though. It makes you those glasses now. Yeah,

Kelly: 17:51

like a weird and standout like a weirdo. Not sounds very positive. I think if I saw somebody walking down those glasses, I think they were more of a weirdo. throw of course kick him. Well, Alex, thank you that that's from Austin. Thanks for that suggestion. We really to get you a dirty city sticker.

Alex: 18:15

All right. Take it easy, Kelly Bye.

Kelly: 18:18

All right, let's hit stop on the cassette and stop