After 31 Years, Sony Ends Production of the Walkman

By John Farrier in Gadgets, Hacks & Mods, Living on Oct 22, 2010 at 4:42 pm

Sony’s portable tape cassette player — a revolution when first released in 1979 — has finally reached the end of its production life:

The final batch was produced in Japan in April, and no more will be produced as soon as the current run is sold out. Just over 200 million cassette Walkman players have been sold over the years since being first introduced in 1979.[...]

The Walkman is widely credited with pioneering the concept of personal, portable audio beyond the radio. It helped spur on the cassette as a popular format and also maintained interest in albums. Interest only began to fade in the 1990s when the Discman took over, and saw a more definite end when the iPod was in sight.

Link via reddit | Photo by Flickr user zer(o_0)ne used under Creative Commons license


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  1. Rich
    Oct 22nd, 2010 at 9:45 pm

    they were still making them????

  2. swissonian
    Oct 23rd, 2010 at 4:06 am

    IPod is a specific product, the category is named: mp3-players

  3. Gaty James
    Oct 23rd, 2010 at 10:09 am

    Sony Walkman also is a specific product. There were many other brands of personal cassette stereos.

    Both (iPod and Walkman) were game changers in their category though, largely making them a lifestyle device, mostly in marketing and good engineering.

    The difference is, Sony largely started the category, while Apple joined an existing category of somewhat geeky technical devices, and engineered it into a lifestyle device anybody used.

  4. greateighthsin
    Oct 23rd, 2010 at 10:47 am

    Woa! They were still making those things!? It’d be amazing to get my hands on one of those! Wonder when CD players are going to be phased out :’(

  5. SMC
    Oct 23rd, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    This cassete player was creatd by Mr. Andreas Pavel, a Brazilian inventor. Sony paid him USD 10,000,000.00 to end the court proces… (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Pavel)

  6. Frau
    Oct 23rd, 2010 at 4:10 pm

    Soooo how much does that make my TPS-L2 worth??

  7. Oscar Z
    Oct 23rd, 2010 at 5:27 pm

    I have a Sony Sportsman Walkman from the 80′s. Still works.

    I showed it to my son and he laughed at the brick like size of it

  8. Michael McGimpsey
    Oct 23rd, 2010 at 11:24 pm

    I used to own a really cool walkman years ago . I remember paying a fortune for it. Compared to the iPod today it was pre-historic.

  9. Robert in San Diego
    Oct 24th, 2010 at 6:36 am

    The good news — the Sony “Walkman” branded AM/FM/Weather digital tuning portable radio goes forever on a single AAA cell. Tough too. The cassette tape may be surpassed by flash memory devices, but for news junkies there are still options.

  10. KayoFrisco
    Oct 24th, 2010 at 9:52 am

    I remember The Walkman Pro (WM-D6C) was a favorite with Deadhead tapers at concerts for years. I made great audience tapes and was easy to carry.

  11. whitcwa
    Oct 24th, 2010 at 11:25 am

    Robert in San Diego, the Sony digitally tuned Walkmans I have used all had poor tuners. Coby makes a nice AM/FM radio with digital tuning. Even better, Insignia makes a portable FM only HD Radio.


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