03_GOSSIP_47_ING

WALKMAN
Nowadays, it is so easy
to reach any song, any
singer, any album that
each new technology
taking place of the
previous trend makes
us rapidly forget the
old ones. Listening to
music by gramophone,
pick-up, cassette
player and even cd
player technologies has
never been as personal
and free as Walkman.
Walkman, changing music
listening habit of people
completely since it was
released to the market, in fact
has been the beginning of the
change.
The first version of Walkman which was
a portable cassette player launched by
Japanese electronic giant Sony in 1979 in
Japan had FM radio, forward and backward
buttons that run cassette forward and
backward, play button that plays the
cassette, battery slots and two earphone
inputs in order that two persons can listen to
music simultaneously. The most significant
problem of the first model having blue-gray
colors is that its lid opened repeatedly by
itself. Therefore, Walkman II had a lid holder
preventing tape lid to open. Moreover,
headphones which came into our lives in
those days, ends of which were covered
by sponges and which were headsets like
crowns were sold together with the Walkman.
R E T R O L O G Y
According to a rumor, Walkman has been
developed by Nobutoshi Kihara, one of Sony
engineers, when Akio Morita, co-founder
of Sony, wanted to listen music without
disturbing people around in aircraft travels.
This product of Sony was sold in many
countries with a different name while it was
sold with the name Walkman in our country.
Some of the names given to Walkman are
“Soundabout” in America, “Stowaway” in
England and “Freestyle” in Switzerland...
The first Walkman prototype was the
modified version of Pressman which is
portable recorder. That recorder commonly
used in those days had no cassette player
feature and was rather expensive.
One of the most popular of those apparatus
was the Pressman of Sony again. Most
significant difference of Walkman from
Pressman was that it was provided with
portable stereo audio output. Patent of
that portable stereo system was granted
to Andreas Pavel who is the inventor of
Pressman.
Although Pavel transferred his license of
said patent to Sony, the patent case there
between lasted for many years. Mobile music
listening adventure initiated with Walkman
proceeded without pausing since then.
When CDs are started to be used instead
of cassettes due to improved storage and
music recording technologies, Sony created a
CD player called Discman following Walkman.
Discman of Sony did not attract the expected
attention while it was not liked much by the
people due to the fact that CD players were
comparatively bigger, and music stopped on
the move.
Sony, achieved to protect trademark
Walkman until today, is launching digital
music players with the name Walkman
nowadays. Furthermore, Sony named mobile
phone (Sony Ericsson W810i) series, which
were produced together with Ericsson for
some time, after Walkman. Even though
cassettes are replaced with CDs first and
then digital music and music players, it
seems that iconic effect created by Walkman
will always be remembered.
If you wish to maintain
nostalgia of Walkman
today; Elbow Cassette
Tape Player which is
connected to cassette
tapes like a clamp and
makes the cassette to
play by means of its
sensors thereon is cut
out for you.
18 19
Burak OCAKOĞLU