A blast from the past

[Shut Up Legs]

I was tidying up the house today, doing a bit of a purge of old electronic parts that had been sitting in a few cupboards gathering dust, and I knew I'd never use some of them again. They included items such as old PC cards and cables, old hifi cables. But one item caught my attention, because it must have been a few decades since I last paid any real attention to it:

It was a Sony Walkman that I'd bought sometime in the mid-80s (I think), and used to use a lot when going on cycling trips around the 'hood when I was in my late teens. Amazingly enough, it still works perfectly, playing AM/FM radio, and even this old Joe Jackson tape I got out to try playing. I still have about 200 or so of these tapes, and was fairly sure I'd never (or very, very rarely) play them again. I inserted the tape, and it plays very nicely.


Remember the days of yore, when all and sundry used to insert cassette tapes into Sony Walkmans, then head outside, listening to the best '80s tracks?

• The tedium of skipping the tracks you liked least, by pressing the fast-forward button, then after a carefully-timed press of the stop button, pressing the play button again to resume playback at the next track?
  
• The annoyance when the cassette tape was a bit worn, and sometimes got twisted and snarled inside the player, so you had to carefully untangle it, then spin one of the tape reels until it was all safely inside the cassette again?
  
• The resignation when the sound from playing the cassette changed to a lower frequency, and you just knew the tape was stretched, and its days of useful playback were numbered?

Ahh, nostalgia... Things were built to last back then (damn, I sounded like my Dad, just then).

Regards,

--- Victor.

P.S. And, yes: I still have a vinyl record player and a colection of records to play, although they also don't get played a great deal these days.

 

[Saluki]

Joe Jackson tape I love Joe Jackson. I have a few LPs of his kicking about, I have his greatest hits on CD too. A Slow Song was my favourite for a long while.

I found some cassettes the other day, myself. Rick Wakeman's No Earthly Connection, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy part 4 I think, Alchemy - Dire Straits, Touch - Eurythmics, couple of Iron Maiden cassettes, Fugazi & Script - Marillion and a few others. They all play. I even found a K-Tel compilation cassette called Souled Out.

Your Walkman looks like a poshy model. Mine didn't have auto reverse on, but it did have a radio and I saved for a couple of months for it, out of my wages. It was my prized possession. I cleaned the heads every couple of weeks and it lasted a couple of years before it got really drenched in a storm and was never the same again.

 

[slowmotion]

I had a Walkman Pro in the Eighties. It cost an absolute fortune, about £120 I think, but worth every single penny. It sounded absolutely fantastic and I used to stick it in the pocket of my jacket and bomb down slopes in the Alps listening to Kim Wilde, Madness and the rest at an entirely carefree period in my life. I discovered it about ten years ago and tried it out. The drive mechanism for the tape transport had been fubared by the passing of time and a lot of happy memories went in the bin with it. It had a really solid "engineered" feel to it and a leather slip case. A great bit of kit.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Joe Jackson tape I love Joe Jackson. I have a few LPs of his kicking about, I have his greatest hits on CD too. A Slow Song was my favourite for a long while.

I found some cassettes the other day, myself. Rick Wakeman's No Earthly Connection, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy part 4 I think, Alchemy - Dire Straits, Touch - Eurythmics, couple of Iron Maiden cassettes, Fugazi & Script - Marillion and a few others. They all play. I even found a K-Tel compilation cassette called Souled Out.

Your Walkman looks like a poshy model. Mine didn't have auto reverse on, but it did have a radio and I saved for a couple of months for it, out of my wages. It was my prized possession. I cleaned the heads every couple of weeks and it lasted a couple of years before it got really drenched in a storm and was never the same again.

I think my Walkman cost about $200, which was pretty expensive back then for a music player. Funnily enough, the first song I played from that tape earlier today was "Slow Song". It's also one of my Joe Jackson favourites, along with "Fools In Love". I just like the long, moody tracks.

The 2nd vinyl album I bought was Alchemy by Dire Straits, and I still have it, although many years later I bought the album on 2 CDs.

 

[mustang1]

My dad bought me a Sony Walkman Ii. I didn't realize how nice it was because later I bought an Aiiwa with a graphic equalizer. I think I should have appreciated my Sony a lot more, that was a quality device.

Later I bought a nifty Panasonic.

I also had a Sharp GF575e ghettoblaster.

 

[slowmotion]

Here it is, a Walkman DC2 with its all aluminium case. I really regret binning it now. A beautiful bit of engineering.

 

[summerdays]

Mine looked chunkier than that and the buttons were on the side, and a bit of clear screen on the front I think. I don't remember exactly how I aquired it, but it may have been in my care as a result of borrowing it from my then boyfriend along with his jumper etc!

 

[mark st1]

I remember getting one of these for my 10th or 11th birthday. A few of my mates tried to take the piss about the colour until I hit them with "yes but its waterproof". I felt like a king

 

[Globalti]

I walked into FNAC in Paris and asked the sales guy: "What's the best Walkman you've got?" Well, actually I asked him: "Quel est le meilleur Walkman que vous avez?" and he recommended the Aiwa, which cost about £100 at that time, around 1986. The sound quality was fantastic, apart from the tape hiss. I think I sold it a few years ago on Ebay.

 

[summerdays]

I've just asked "the boyfriend", and he bought it from a fellow student, a well off one, Anthony, can't remember his surname but he lived in Marlow.

 

[Booyaa]

I was tidying up the house today, doing a bit of a purge of old electronic parts that had been sitting in a few cupboards gathering dust, and I knew I'd never use some of them again. They included items such as old PC cards and cables, old hifi cables. But one item caught my attention, because it must have been a few decades since I last paid any real attention to it:



It was a Sony Walkman that I'd bought sometime in the mid-80s (I think), and used to use a lot when going on cycling trips around the 'hood when I was in my late teens. Amazingly enough, it still works perfectly, playing AM/FM radio, and even this old Joe Jackson tape I got out to try playing. I still have about 200 or so of these tapes, and was fairly sure I'd never (or very, very rarely) play them again. I inserted the tape, and it plays very nicely.


Remember the days of yore, when all and sundry used to insert cassette tapes into Sony Walkmans, then head outside, listening to the best '80s tracks?

• The tedium of skipping the tracks you liked least, by pressing the fast-forward button, then after a carefully-timed press of the stop button, pressing the play button again to resume playback at the next track?
  
• The annoyance when the cassette tape was a bit worn, and sometimes got twisted and snarled inside the player, so you had to carefully untangle it, then spin one of the tape reels until it was all safely inside the cassette again?
  
• The resignation when the sound from playing the cassette changed to a lower frequency, and you just knew the tape was stretched, and its days of useful playback were numbered?

Ahh, nostalgia... Things were built to last back then (damn, I sounded like my Dad, just then).

Regards,

--- Victor.

P.S. And, yes: I still have a vinyl record player and a colection of records to play, although they also don't get played a great deal these days.

Very nice! Loved that model too, don't think it was around in the 80's though, don't think it was released until early 90's, possibly 90.

 

[ianrauk]

I loved my Walkman. Got me through many a crap train commute to work.

 

[Katherine]

Another one who used it on train journies. I've still got my Walkman. It's red. It used to eat batteries which restricted me a bit. We have 2 shoeboxes and a drawer full of cassettes, but most of them are home recordings from albums, some of which we have but most were borrowed. I occasionally listen to them in the car as I have an old Punto with only a radio cassette player. The kids bought an adapter for it to play their mp3 stuff through it.

 

[MontyVeda]

Here it is, a Walkman DC2 with its all aluminium case. I really regret binning it now. A beautiful bit of engineering. View attachment 120239

I still want one of these... (the proper walkman pro):

What i had (after the Lloytron 'walkman') was this model...

it had a digital radio which displayed the time when not in use, ensuring the batteries continued to drain. It was vastly improved when i took to it with a silver marker and some dark grey paint and carefully changed 'Walkman' to 'Hawkman'... I was a big Hawkwind fan at the time

 

[growingvegetables]

Not necessarily completely out-of-date?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35634008 and http://www.dailydot.com/technology/cassette-tapes-stepp/ ? Hang on to them! Use them!