On July 1st the Walkman has turned 45, a device from the 80s that changed forever the way we listen to music on the go. A true icon celebrated everywhere, even in movies. Who doesn’t remember the scene from The Time of Apples where his headphones were enough to make the two protagonists fall in love. But also in Back to the Futurewhere the two-button device “terrified” by blasting music directly into your ears at full volume, as if it were an alien object.
History
The first prototype was that of the Sony which launched it on July 1, 1979. It was blue like the color of jeans, because it could be carried in a pocket while walking, a new way to listen to music by personalizing it, unthinkable until then. The first version was created by the co-founders of Sony Masaru Ibuka And Aki Moritawhich took inspiration from the mini recording devices used by journalists. The intuition was brilliant, the realization on the contrary was very simple, because it was a modified “pressman”.
It was initially called TPS-L2later renamed “walkman” literally “man walking“. Designed for a youth market and to “share” music between two people for fear, later revealed to be more than realistic, of social isolation, thanks to the possibility of two foam headphone jacks. It weighed about 400 grams and was powered by two AA batteries. It was launched on the market at a price of 39 yen, about 150 dollars, not exactly cheap but in a very short time it became, like cell phones now, an object that was impossible to do without.
A personal DJ
Despite the possibility of inserting two headphones, the Walkman immediately became the “private DJ” of every buyer that could be taken anywhere to isolate oneself from the world and enjoy music that “it seemed to come straight from the brain“. For this reason the diffusion of this device was immediate and towards the mid 80s it could be found everywhere in the world. Given the great success of Sony the new device with minimal changes was then produced by everyone, Toshiba, Panasonic and many others changed the color, the model of the headphones but keeping the concept created by Ibuka and Morita intact.
Over the next few decades, the Walkman evolved steadily, from aluminum to plastic to steel, from muted tones to even smaller models, to the bright yellow, splash-proof sports Walkman, complete with sleek in-ear headphones and even a radio. What came next—portable CD players, MiniDisc players, iPods, and smartphones—all owe their legacy to the “little colored box” with two foam earcups.
The object of desire
Even though that way of listening to music is now obsolete, Walkmans
are still objects of desire for collectors. The price can reach hundreds, even thousands of euros, just for the pleasure of being able to have in your collection, an important piece of music history.