The End for Some
Apr 16, 2009
Fox:
The Walkman, Discman and MiniDisc player: The multitasker's dream, the Sony Walkman portable cassette player changed the way the world listened to music in 1979, quickly becoming the hottest accessory of the early 1980s.
In 1984, Sony trumped itself with the introduction of the Discman, the CD version, which allowed for individual tracks instead of one never-ending, albeit varied, song.
Eight years later, a new format, the MiniDisc, essentially a tiny CD in a cartridge, caught on in Europe and Asia. But it fizzled in the U.S., where oblivious Yanks kept on listening to their Discmen until they were killed off by iPods in the early years of this decade.
I bought a Sony Walkman in the late 90s. At the time, I went back during the summers to Saudi Arabia where my family lived -- the numerous audio cassettes and the radio provided some relief in that hell.
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