Walkman
From ArticleWorld
The Walkman, a trademark of Sony Corporation, is a term used to refer to any of the company's personal stereo systems and audio players. First introduced in the late 1970s, it quickly became popular and changed the music listening habits of people by allowing them to listen on the move. Special models were introduced for swimmers, joggers and other sportspersons, allowing people to listen to high quality music wherever they may go.
The plural form can be "Walkmans" or "Walkmen", although the latter is rarely used and often considered incorrect.
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Invention
After Philips Electronics introduced the cassette tape in 1963, many companies began working on new models of tape recorders which would be small and easily portable, hence taking advantage of the cassette tape's small size in relation to its predecessors.
Sony launched a device called the “Pressman” in 1977. This was followed by the release of the first Walkman, Soundabout, in 1979. A Japanese physicist Akio Morita created the trademark “Walkman” and is sometimes referred to as the father and inventor of the Walkman. He was also one of the co-founders of Sony.
However, the actual inventor of the Walkman, or rather the 'stereobelt' as it was known at that time, was the German inventor Andreas Pavel, who invented the device in 1972 and patented it in 1977. After Sony introduced the Walkman and claimed Akio Morita as its inventor, many legal battles ensued, and Sony finally agreed to an out of court settlement in 2003 recognised Pavel as the original inventor of the Walkman.
Types
Cassette-based
All Walkmans which were released in the beginning were cassette based. The first one to be released was the TPS-L2 in July 1979. It featured stereo playback and dual headphone jacks through which two users could listen to the music at the same time and even converse with each other. However, the dual jack feature was removed in the next model, the Walkman II (WM-2) which was released in 1981. WM-2 was 25 percent smaller than its predecessor and had a lower price tag.
Around the same time, Sony’s competitors like Toshiba and Aiwa brought out their own ‘Walkman’ models. However, Sony kept a hold of the market by constantly introducing unprecedented innovations in features, such as Dolby noise reduction, the rechargeable battery feature, lower power consumption and smaller sizes.
By the end of the 20th century, with the introduction of CD and hard-drive technology, other types of Walkman models capable of playing such devices began to be released.
CD Walkman
In 1984, D-50 was the first CD based Walkman – also known as “Discman” – to be released. Newer Discman models featured Electronic Skip Protection which buffers data a few seconds ahead of the current playback into the RAM in order to reduce “CD skipping” that occurs when the player is jerked. CD Walkmans can now also play ATRAC3 plus and MP3 CDs.
Other types
- MiniDisc Walkmans: These Walkmans play MiniDiscs, media that are similar to CDs but smaller in size.
- Network Walkman: These models playback music from hard drives or flash memory. Examples include Apple’s iPod and Sony’s NW-HD5.
- Walkman phones: These are mobile phones that play music from memory sticks. Walkman phones may also have additional features such as playlists and audio controls. The Sony Ericsson is an example of a Walkman phone.