After 31 Years, Sony Ends Production of the Walkman

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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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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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.
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