The other day out on patrol I ran across a senior delinquent with one of the old Sony Walkman. I eventually bought one but by that time, they were coming ou with those Diskman’s. Mine was black and ruggedized with the rubber armour… and I was astounded to find that I wish I still had it! Does anyone even do cassettes anymore? Mine used to ride in the water bottle bracket on my mountain bike.
Dammit. Now I miss my mountain bike. 🙁
That is a cool transister radio of bygone era. Bras back then could take an eye out ... :^)
ReplyDeleteMy Walkman was a freebie via my Hawaiian honeymoon. Some poor dude leaned up against a public trashcan and unclipped from his belt. I was the 1st individual who spotted it and boosted it just like that. Karma.
I have an old Sony Walkman that takes cassette tapes, never got the Discman. Technology exploded around that time and music playing machines really multiplied quickly.
Then the smart phone came along and flushed them all away.
I remember my Grandad had a radio just like that. He bought his when the transistor had just replaced the vacuum tube and it cost him an arm and a leg - just like the Walkmans in their day. I think I paid about 200 bucks for mine - in early 1990's dollars. It was a lot of money for a guy with a family going back to school... but it was money well spent.
DeleteToday I do my music on the cell too. I have those stupid wireless bluetooth speakers, and my motorcycle is plumbed up to play off the cell too.
Glen, I do remember that model! I do not think I had one, but I remember seeing one.
ReplyDeleteI actually still do have cassettes - although as with video tapes, the challenge anymore is finding something to play them on. I should probably just find the ones I want to keep and have someone convert them to the phone music.
No cassettes, but my ugly azz 75 Chevy van has an 8 track. The Sig Other found it, still in the original shrinkwrap, at a garage sale for 5 bucks. A little searching, some emails and a couple boxes of tapes arrived.
ReplyDeleteGlen, I still have my original Walkman. I bought it back in 1981. When I read your post, I pulled it out of the back of my desk drawer and looked it over. It looks okay and takes 2 AA batteries. Wondering if it still works, I looked all over the office and - no cassettes anywhere.
ReplyDeleteI also have an original Diskman. I bought it sometime in the mid 80's, and it also still works. The problem with the early Diskman was that the laser wasn't stable enough to play a disk while on the move. I bought it mainly for the car and it would skip every time I hit the slightest bump. Portable disk players got much better later on.
And speaking of antiques, I also have an original "Zenith Transoceanic" radio that was made in 1954. (It's 3 months older than ME!) This was a portable battery operated *tube* radio. The battery for this beast was a huge thing about the size of a dictionary, (...or a pulpit sized King James Bible.) I haven't seen a battery for it since the seventies, but it will run off of 120v line power. Mine still works, but the electrolytic filter capacitor is dried out, so it hums pretty loud when it's played. I got it when I was in high school back about 1971. My physics teacher had two of them, neither of which worked. I fixed the newer one for him and in payment, he gave me the older one. I then proceeded to fix that one and I've had it ever since.