BBC Magazine ran a really great article last week about the 30 year anniversary of the Sony Walkman. They asked a 13 year old blogger to trade his iPod for a first edition Walkman. Here are his observations:
Size – his dad told him it was large but he had no idea how big it would actually be. It´s as big as a toaster
Social ridicule – wearing a Walkman on the school bus in 2009 is a certain way to be laughed at, no old school love
Tapes have two sides – it took him a few days to realize that he could flip the tape and listen to more music
Thought the metal/normal switch was a genre-specific equaliser instead of a type of tape
Looked for a shuffle option and couldn´t find one so he created his own shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly
So many thoughts and feelings jumped off the page as I was reading this story. The first was that I can´t believe that the Walkman is 30 years old. The second was that the shelf life of new technology is fleeting. It is scary to imagine in 30 years what the successor to the iPod will look like. I guess the moral of the story is to never be satisfied with your current technology and always keep pressing forward. Don´t be afraid to be a first adopter, and don´t forget to flip the tape.
Kickin’ It Old School
BBC Magazine ran a really great article last week about the 30 year anniversary of the Sony Walkman. They asked a 13 year old blogger to trade his iPod for a first edition Walkman. Here are his observations:
So many thoughts and feelings jumped off the page as I was reading this story. The first was that I can´t believe that the Walkman is 30 years old. The second was that the shelf life of new technology is fleeting. It is scary to imagine in 30 years what the successor to the iPod will look like. I guess the moral of the story is to never be satisfied with your current technology and always keep pressing forward. Don´t be afraid to be a first adopter, and don´t forget to flip the tape.